Development of a Communication Support Device Controlled by Eye Movements and Voluntary Eye Blink

  • Authors:

  • Junichi Hori;Koji Sakano;Yoshiaki Saitoh

  • Affiliations:

  • The authors are with the Dept. of Biocybernetics, Niigata University, Niigata-shi, 950--2181 Japan. E-mail: hori@bc.niigata-u.ac.jp,;The author is with the Graduate School of Science and Technology, Niigata University, Niigata-shi, 950--2181 Japan.;The authors are with the Dept. of Biocybernetics, Niigata University, Niigata-shi, 950--2181 Japan. E-mail: hori@bc.niigata-u.ac.jp,

  • Venue:
  • IEICE - Transactions on Information and Systems
  • Year:
  • 2006

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Abstract

A communication support interface controlled by eye movements and voluntary eye blink has been developed for disabled individuals with motor paralysis who cannot speak. Horizontal and vertical electro-oculograms were measured using two surface electrodes attached above and beside the dominant eye and referring to an earlobe electrode and amplified with AC-coupling in order to reduce the unnecessary drift. Four directional cursor movements ---up, down, right, and left--- and one selected operation were realized by logically combining the two detected channel signals based on threshold settings specific to the individual. Letter input experiments were conducted on a virtual screen keyboard. The method's usability was enhanced by minimizing the number of electrodes and applying training to both the subject and the device. As a result, an accuracy of 90.1 ± 3.6% and a processing speed of 7.7 ± 1.9 letters/min. were obtained using our method.