Wheelchair control with the tip of the tongue

Abstract

A tongue controlled oral interface for control of assistive devices has been developed for disabled persons at Aalborg University. The interface consists of a mouthpiece attached to the palate of the oral cavity of the user with dental retainers, an activation unit attached to the tongue as the upper ball of a piercing and a central unit for signal processing. The central unit has been interfaced to a Permobil C500 wheelchair. One healthy subject performed driving tests on two triangular tracks of 7.2 m (two sides of 2 m length at 900) and on a linear track of 8.34 m (4.17 m forward and 4.17 m backwards) to evaluate maneuverability of the wheelchair controlled by the tip of the tongue. Mean maximal velocities of 0.31, 0.28, 0.26, 0.3, and 0.61 m/sec were obtained on the two triangular tracks on both directions and on the linear track respectively, after 3 to 4 repetitions of the driving test on each track. These results suggest that good control of the wheelchair may be obtained using the oral interface in a short period of training.