Mouse controlado por sistema de pressão para indivíduos portadores de tetraplegia

Abstract

This work describes the development of an equipment directed to handicapped users with severe mobility injury. The equipment makes a man-machine interface capable of recognize the stimulations (blows) and transform them into movements of the mouse's cursor. The signal acquisition is made through of two pressure transducers, located next to the face of the user. The transducer's signals are amplified, converted for digital data and sent to the computer through a microcontroller. The communication between the computer and the equipment is made through an USB port. In the computer, specialized software makes the interpretation of the received data. To allow text edition, the system disposes of a virtual keyboard. The developed system showed user-friendly and efficient, with a great applications in the rehabilitation engineering area. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2007.