Communication device to use an acceleration sensor for the seriously disabled

A communication device is proposed for use as an acceleration sensor for the seriously disabled. This device is mainly for disabled people with problems such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) or a cerebral infarction, who have communication difficulties because of a physical disability. A feature of this device is that the sensor can readily be mounted on the user’s body. The mounting of the sensor on the body is easy, unlike a conventional touch sensor. Another feature is that even though the physical disability of the user is serious, this device can be operated by slight movements of a part of the body. In addition, we have developed an adaptive word processing software for seriously disabled people. A feature of this software is that the arrangement and size of the buttons and the window on the display can be optimized based on the user’s physical ability. In a field test, we confirmed that our communication device incorporating this adaptive word processing software was applicable to disabled people.

Authors and Affiliations

1. Department of Mechanical Systems Engineering, Nagasaki University, 1-14 Bunkyo-machi, Nagasaki, 852-8521, Japan

   Yoshio Fukuda, Motohiro Tanaka, Atsushi Yoshimochi & Takakazu Ishimatsu

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Takakazu Ishimatsu.

This work was presented in part at the 8th International Symposium on Artificial Life and Robotics, Oita, Japan, January 24–26, 2003