אפקה - פרויקטי גמר 2020

Eye Controlled communication system

Background

Tzachi is a 33-year-old male that has suffered from a brain injury, which left

him "imprisoned in his own body“, paralyzed and speechless and is able to

communicate with the environment only through the movements of his eyes.

In this project we help Tzachi communicate with his surroundings by

developing a computerized system. This system enables the translation of

Tzachi's eye movements to voice and text. The system helps Tzachi to be

less dependent on his father and enables total independence in

communication with his surroundings.

Methods

To identify the movement of the pupil, we used MATLAB software for image

processing and with an infra-red camera the algorithm analyzes the

movements of the eye in real time, and selects the desired words and

sentences. It uses an acoustic signal generator to play the word / sentence

through a loudspeaker.

The project integrates medical technology development based primarily on

software algorithms, image processing, using sensors and electronics.

The algorithm captures the eyes and the near infra-red reflection on the pupil

(the white dots in the image), and calculates their angle position in the pupil

and distance from its center.

Nets Algerisi, Michal Barabash

Advisor

Dr. Shiri Gordon

Client: Tzachi

Medical Engineering

On the right image is the system’s output screen. The screen is divided into

nine selection regions (indicated by numbers) from which the user can chose

by gazing. The left image shows the position of the corresponding IR

reflection (represented by stars with the respective region’s number). The

angles range is from 0 to 360 in 45 degree intervals. When the distance

between the reflection and the center of the pupil is approximately 0 the

system recognizes it as position #5.

Results

The users first screen contains 8 categories and each category has 8 options

of expressing his needs. The options were made after consulting Tzachi’s

father, Yuval and totally personalized for his own needs.

This project provides an eye-controlled communication

system for a specific patient.

Utilizing a computer system that detects the point of gaze in

real time based on near infra-red technology, the user can

move his eyes to select a desired sentence and the system

plays it by the laptop’s built-in loudspeaker.

Degrees

Selection number