SBIR Phase I: Developing the Standalone Tongue Drive System

The broader impact/commercial potential of this project centers on bringing enhanced independence, productivity, and quality of life for hundreds of thousands of individuals in the US who suffer severe physical disability due to spinal cord injury or other debilitating neurodegenerative disorders, such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. Due to improvements in emergency medicine and increasing average age in the society, these individuals represent a growing population that is underserved by current assistive technologies (ATs). The ATs being relied upon to carry out basic tasks are still primitive, offer limited versatility, and fail to meet end-user needs. Meanwhile, computers and internet play ever-growing roles in everyday life and are regarded as equalizers that allow all individuals to have similar vocational, recreational, and educational opportunities. The Tongue Drive System (TDS) offers individuals with severe physical disabilities an intuitive and superior mechanism for accessing computer based resources ? wheelchairs, smartphones, computers, smart homes, etc. TDS harnesses the power of the tongue, which often retains full capability in these individuals despite losses of other body functions, to drive human-computer interfaces. TDS has the potential to revolutionize the current US AT market with an overall anticipated market size of $1B within its primary market segment. This Small Business Innovation Research Phase I project aims to establish a new architecture for a wireless and wearable tongue drive system (TDS) to address existing barriers to commercialization. While functional, the current research-grade TDS prototype is based upon a sub-optimal architecture relying on multiple devices to process and deliver user commands, opening the door to reliability, performance, and safety issues. The current system?s reliance on off-board processing, the commonly used 2.4 GHz band, and the use of multiple wireless links for command transmission result in a slow implementation that is sensitive to packet loss and interference. In safety critical modes of operation, such as steering a powered wheelchair, these sources of risk and performance degradation are unacceptable. The proposed research will consolidate key TDS functions within a standalone TDS headset that can interface with any target peripheral with a direct wireless link. Hardware redesigns will include a powerful microcontroller to onboard sensor data acquisition and signal processing algorithms. Dual radio chipsets will be incorporated to maintain interoperability with commercial devices using 2.4 GHz radios, while also supporting less utilized frequency bands for safety critical operations. The result of this research will be a robust AT suitable for safely critical deployments.