Development or Adaptation of Assistive Devices, Mechanisms, Technologies, or Techniques for Individuals with Disabilities

Advancements in digital signal processing (DSP) and video technology have created an opportunity to develop a low-cost system to allow people with disabilities to control a computer using head and eye movements. A software-based system would be developed to track head and eye movements at much lower cost than the hardware-based systems currently available. The processing power available on the computer would be used rather than designing and manufacturing specialized circuit boards for this purpose. Many of the algorithms required for head tracking are also applicable (with modification) to eye tracking, which will increase the effectiveness of the development effort and result in additional cost savings for the development of an eyetracking system.