To help people with Severe Speech and Motor Impairment (SSMI), a research team at the Centre for Product Design and Manufacturing (CPDM), Indian Institute of Science (IISc), has designed a robotic arm that can be manipulated by eye movement using a computer interface.
This interface, according to a statement from the Institute, is non-invasive since it is through a webcam and a computer, unlike other eye gaze-tracking devices that use head-mounted systems.
Eye gaze-controlled computer interfaces can help people with SSMI ‒ a condition caused by disorders like cerebral palsy ‒ perform various tasks on par with their non-disabled peers, the statement said.
The team worked with young adult students who have SSMI at Vidya Sagar (formerly The Spastics Society of India) in Chennai, an institution for individuals with disabilities.
“Many of these students (with cerebral palsy) are not able to precisely focus at a single point in their visual field, due to uncontrolled gaze movement. They are also not comfortable to look at all portions of the visual field equally,” says project lead Pradipta Biswas, Assistant Professor at CPDM.
Biswas and his team used computer vision and machine learning algorithms to analyse live feeds of facial video from the users, and were able to estimate where the user was looking. They coupled this with an Augmented Reality application to allow the user to use a robotic arm for tasks like picking up and dropping objects, and placing them where they desire, as long as it was within reach of the robotic arm.
