Development of interface by detecting movements of skin surface from optical flow

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to develop contactless interface for intractable neurological disease (e.g. ALS, SMA). At present time, major interface for patients of neurological diseases is a piezo switch. Piezo switch has been used by pasting on skin surface. Therefore, it causes skin trouble. The interface developed by this study enabled a user to switch on something like a nurse call system by moving skin surface. In order to detect the skin movements, this interface detected feature points of skin surface on the image from USB camera and determines optical flow. We confirmed the effectiveness of this interface by doing experiments.