Update on Tongue Powered Wheelchair

posted on Jan 25 by Stacy in the Disability News, Technology, Wheelchair Technology category

We have an update on the tongue powered wheelchair, which you all have been very interested in over the past several months.
Paralyzed from the neck down from a skimboarding accident, Cruise Bogle was flown to the Shepherd Center in Atlanta where he was chosen to test drive a new piece of technology. Joining forces with scientists from the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology, Shepherd is trying out a new wheelchair that is not powered by a keyboard or buttons or a wand in the mouth, but by the patients tongue.

“One of the major advantages of the tongue is that it is directly connected to the brain,” says Maysam Ghovanloo, assistant professor at Georgia Tech and head of the project. Once Cruise Bogle mastered the movement of his tongue to generate different commands for his chair, his tongue was fitted with a magnet, no bigger than a piece of rice. The magnet works much like a mouse pad with the tongue as the cursor. Moving the tongue forward sends a wireless signal to six sensors in the headset that cause the wheelchair to go forward. Moving the tongue back and the chair goes in reverse. Bogle was able to navigate an obstacle course of cones by touching his tongue to certain parts of his mouth.

Researchers at Tech are working on ways to improve the equipment. The original trial only worked with six commands, but The Tongue Drive system being developed now has the ability to capture a larger number of movements, each will represent a different command. Other mouth-manipulation techniques are being worked on by other researchers, however, Georgia Tech is the only group focusing on the tongue.

More at: CNN

Previous coverage: Wheelchair Powered by Tongue Piercing?!