Abstract
This paper proposes a new control device based on tongue motions to control a physical support system for a paralyzed patient. We focus on the tongue movements as one of output of human intentions, because the tongue has one of capable parts for the motions and it does not affected by spinal cord damage. The tongue motion is easily observed from his mouse inside, but it is hard to observe them from outside. We therefore propose a detection algorithm of the tongue motions by using multiple array electrodes attached on a skin surface around a neck. The tongue motions are detected based on the center position of distributions of muscle potentials that are measured by the electrodes. We investigate the precisions of the detection through the experiment and then confirmed that almost accuracy of discrimination is more than 70% as for six tongue movements such as left, right, front, back, up, and down.
