TONGUE DRIVE SYSTEM

ABSTRACT
Tongue Drive System is a new revolutionary system to help individuals with disabilities to control wheelchairs, computers and other devices simply by using their tongue. It is a noncontact, unobtrusive, tongue-operated assistive technology. Tongue Drive system will be helpful to individuals with serious disabilities, such as those with severe spinal cord injuries and will allow them to lead more active and independent lives. Individuals using a tongue-based system should only be able to move their tongue, which is especially important if a person has paralyzed limbs. A tiny magnet, only a size of a grain of rice, is attached to an individual's tongue using implantation, piercing or adhesive. This technology allows a disabled person to use tongue when moving a computer mouse or a powered wheelchair. Scientists chose the tongue to control the system because unlike the feet and the hands, which are connected by brain through spinal cord, the tongue and the brain has a direct connection through cranial nerve. In case when a person has a severe spinal cord injure or other damage, the tongue will remain mobile to activate the system. Tongue movements are also fast, accurate and do not require much thinking, concentration or effort. The motions of the magnet attached to the tongue are spotted by a number of magnetic field sensors installed on a headset worn outside or an orthodontic brace inside the mouth.The signals coming from the sensors are wirelessly sent to a portable computer that placed on a wheelchair or attached to an individual's clothing. The Tongue Drive system is touch-free, wireless and non-invasive technology that needs no surgery for its operation.

INTRODUCTION
Assistive technologies are critical for people with severe disabilities to lead a self-supportive independent life. Persons severely disabled as a result of causes ranging from traumatic brain and spinal cord injuries to stroke generally find it extremely difficult to carry out everyday tasks without continuous help. Assistive technologies that would help them communicate their intentions and effectively control their environment, especially to operate a computer, would greatly improve the quality of life for this group of people and may even help them to be employed. This device could revolutionize the field of assistive technologies by helping individuals with severe disabilities, such as those with high-level spinal cord injuries, return to rich, active, independent and productive lives. The TDS provides people with minimal or no movement ability in their upper limbs with an efficacious tool for computer access and environmental control. Tongue Drive consists of A small permanent magnet secured on the tongue by implantation, piercing, or tissue adhesives is used as a tracer, the movement of which is detected by an array of magnetic field sensors mounted on a headset outside the mouth or on an orthodontic brace inside. The sensor outputs signals are wirelessly transmitted to an ultraportable computer carried on the user's clothing or wheelchair and are processed to extract the user's commands. The user can then use these commands to access a desktop computer, control a power wheelchair, or interact with his or her environment.

Use of Tongue for Manipulation

TDS chose the tongue to operate the system because unlike hands and feet, which are controlled by the brain through the spinal cord, the tongue is directly connected to the brain by a cranial nerve that generally escapes damage in severe spinal cord injuries or neuromuscular diseases. Tongue movements are also fast, accurate and do not require much thinking, concentration or effort. Movement of the magnetic tracer attached to the tongue is detected by an array of magnetic field sensors mounted on a headset outside the mouth or on an orthodontic brace inside the mouth. The sensor output signals are wirelessly transmitted to a portable computer, which can be carried on the user's clothing or wheelchair

TDS PROCESSING
In Tongue Drive system, the motion of the tongue is traced by an array of Hall- effect magnetic sensors, which measure the magnetic field generated by a small permanent magnet that is contained within a nonmagnetic fixture and pierced on the tongue. The magnetic sensors are mounted on a dental retainer and attached on the outside of the teeth to measure the magnetic field from different angles and provide continuous real-time analog outputs.

Fig. shows the Tongue Drive System block diagram with two major units: one inside the mouth, the mouthpiece, and the other outside, a portable body

worn controller. Small batteries such as hearing aid button-sized cells are intended to power the mouthpiece for extended durations up to a mouth. The power management circuitry scans through the sensors and turns them on one at a time to save power. The time division multiplexes (TDM) analog outputs are then digitized, modulated, and transmitted to the external controller unit across a wireless link. The magnetic field generated by the tracer inside and around the mouth varies as a result of the tongue movements. These variations are detected by an array of sensitive magnetic sensors mounted on a headset outside the mouth, similar to a head-worn microphone, or mounted on a dental retainer inside the mouth, similar to an orthodontic brace. The sensor outputs are wirelessly transmitted to a personal digital assistant (PDA) also worn by the user. A sensor signal processing (SSP) algorithm running on the PDA classifies the sensor signals and converts them into user control commands that are then wirelessly communicated to the targeted devices in the user's environment.The principal advantage of the TDS is that a few magnetic sensors and a small magnetic tracer can potentially capture a large number of tongue movements, each of which can represent a particular user command. A set of specific tongue movements can be tailored for each individual user and mapped onto a set of customized functions based on his or her abilities, oral anatomy, personal preferences and lifestyle. The user can also define a command to switch the TDS to standby mode when he or she wants to sleep, engage in a conversation, or eat. The signals received by the external controller unit are demodulated and demultiplexed to extract the individual sensor outputs. By processing these outputs, the motion of the permanent magnet and consequently the tongue within the oral cavity is determined. Assigning a certain control function to each particular tongue movement is done in software and can be easily

customized control functions may then individual user. These customized control functions may then be used to operate a variety of devices and equipments including computers, phones, and powered wheelchairs. One prototype for human trials, shown in Figure 2, was built on a face shield to facilitate positioning of the sensors for different subjects. The main function of this prototype was to directly emulate the mouse pointing and selection functions with the tongue movements. Six commands were defined: left, right, up, and down pointer movements Q3 and single- and double-click movements. As long as the SSP algorithm was running in the background, no additional software or learning was needed if the user was familiar with the mouse operation and any piece of software that was operable by a mouse. Small, cylindrical, rare-earth permanent magnets were used as magnetic tracers. A pair of two- axis magnetic field sensor modules (PNI; Santa Rosa, California) was mounted symmetrically at right angles on the face shield close to the user's cheeks. Each two-axis module contained a pair of orthogonal magneto-inductive sensors, Hence, we had one sensor along the x-axis, one along the y-axis, and two along the z-axis with respect to the imaginary coordinates of the face shield. To minimize the effects of external magnetic field interference, including the earth magnetic field, we used a three-axis module as a reference electronic compass. The reference compass was placed on top of the face shield so as to be far from the tongue magnet and to only measure the ambient magnetic field. The reference compass output was then used to predict and cancel out the interfering magnetic fields at the location of the main two-axis sensor modules. All seven sensor outputs, already in digital form, were sent serially to the ultralow-power MSP430 microcontroller (Texas Instruments; Dallas, Texas) that is the heart of the control unit. The microcontroller took 11samples/s from each sensor while

activating only one module at a time to reduce power consumption. After reading all sensors, we arranged the samples in a data frame and wirelessly transmitted them to a personal computer (PC) across a 2.4 GHz wireless link established between two identical nRF2401 transceivers (Nordic

Semiconductor; Trondheim, Norway). The entire system was powered by a 3.3 V coin-sized battery (CR2032), which together with the control unit and reference compass were hidden under the face shield cap.

PROTOTYPE TONGUE DRIVE SYSTEM

The system can potentially capture a large number of tongue movements, each of which can represent a different user command. A unique set of specific tongue movements can be tailored for each individual based on the user's abilities, oral anatomy, personal preferences and lifestyle. An individual could potentially train our system to recognize touching each tooth as a different command. The ability to train our system with as many commands as an individual can comfortably remember is a significant advantage over the common sip- n-puff device that acts as a simple switch controlled by sucking or blowing through a straw. The Tongue Drive system is also non-invasive and does not require brain surgery like some of the braincomputer interface technologies.

TASKS PERFORMED IN TDS

Computer mouse tasks left, right, up and down pointer movements and single- and double-click. For each trial, the individual began by training the system. During the five-minute training session, the individual repeated each of the six designated tongue movements 10 times. During the testing session, the user moved his or her tongue to one of the predefined command positions and the mouse pointer started moving in the selected direction. To move the cursor faster, users could hold their tongue in the position of the issued command to gradually accelerate the pointer until it reached a maximum velocity. Results of the computer access test by novice users with the current Tongue Drive prototype showed a response time of less than one second with almost 100 percent accuracy for the six individual commands. This is equivalent to an information transfer rate of approximately 150 bits per minute, which is much faster than the bandwidth of most brain-computer interfaces. The research team has also begun to develop software to connect the Tongue Drive system to a wide variety of readily available communication tools such as text generators, speech synthesizers and readers. In addition, the researchers plan to add control commands, such as switching the system into standby mode to permit the user to eat, sleep or engage in a conversation while extending battery life.

MODES IN POWERED WHEEL CHAIR

Operated the powered wheelchair using two different control strategies:

1. DISCRETE MODE Discrete mode, designed for novice users, and continuous mode for more experienced users. In discrete mode, if the user issued the command to move forward and then wanted to turn right, the user would have to stop the wheelchair before issuing the command to turn right. The default stop command was when the tongue returned to its resting position, bringing the wheelchair to a standstill.Discrete mode is a safety feature particularly for novice users, but it reduces the agility of the wheel chair movement.

2. CONTINUOUS MODE In continuous mode, however, the user is allowed to steer the powered wheelchair to the left or right as it is moving forward and backward, thus making it possible to follow a curve.

ADVANTAGES OF TDS
Allows disabled people to power a wheelchair Allows disabled people to use a computer Allows disabled people to not depend on others Allows disabled people to have more freedom Allows disabled people to become employable

DRAWBACKS
Computer battery could die when not around charger Could take a while to learn how to use it Might not be affordable for some people Decreases job opportunities for some Computer could go down

CONCLUSION

Tongue drive system technology is a gift for the physically challenged and disabled persons to lead their life equal to the normal persons in the society. A tongue operated magnetic sensor based wireless assistive technology has been developed for people with severe disabilities to lead a self-supportive independent life enabling them to control their environment using their tongue. This technology works by tracking movements of permanent magnet, secured on the tongue, utilizing an array of linear Hall- effect sensors. The sensor outputs are a function of the position-dependent magnetic field generated by the permanent magnet. This allows a small array of sensors to capture a large number of tongue movements. Thus, providing quicker, smoother, and more convenient proportional control compared to many

existing assistive technologies. Other advantages of the Tongue Drive system are being unobtrusive, low cost, minimally invasive, flexible, and easy to operate. A more advanced version with custom designed low-power electronics that entirely fit within the mouthpiece is currently under development.