A cap as interface for wheelchair control

Abstract

Many disabled people do not have the dexterity necessary to use a joystick or other hand interface for controlling a standard robotic wheelchair. In many cases, they suffer from diseases which have damaged most of the nervous and muscular system in their body, but leave the brain and eye movement unimpaired. To this end, we developed an interface which enables the user to guide a robotic wheelchair by eye-gaze, using a minimal number of electrodes attached on the head. The device can measure the electro-oculographic potential of the eye-gaze movement together with the electromyographic signals from the jaw muscle motion. By coupling these simple actions, one is able to navigate a wheelchair solely by the eye and jaw movements, which provides an aid to mobility for severely disable people.