Host: The Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers
Name : [in Japanese]
Date : June 06, 2021 - June 08, 2021
We have developed an intraoral input device using tongue. This device contains three photo-reflectors in a balloon of silicone rubber and it can measure the quantity and direction of the pushing force of silicone rubber film. By using this device, we can make a controller that generates information by the tongue. We have applied this device to control the robotic arm for the third arm for the soldering operator. We also applied it for the wheelchair controller. The device has very good operability for both applications. This forward pushing type intraoral input device, however, has the disadvantage that the tongue tends to get tired during use. In this paper, we developed a upward pushing type intraoral input device to reduce the fatigue. The first prototype had the drawback of very poor controllability because we push the whole silicone balloon and the detection of the pushing direction is very difficult. In the improved prototype device, the area of the reflector attached to the inner wall is reduced so that the movement of the balloon-shaped silicone rubber in the front-back and left-right directions by the movement of the tongue can be detected. This upward pushing type input device has same controllability to the forward pushing type with less fatigue.
