Wheelchair can be guided by tongue

July 05 2007 at 02:04AM

Paris - Engineers in Britain and the United States have devised a wheelchair that the disabled can steer using their tongues, New Scientist says.

The gadget works thanks to a tiny microphone that points inside the ear canal and is sealed off from outside noise by a plug.

When the wearer moves his tongue, this forces air around the mouth, causing pressure changes that provide a unique signature of the movement.

The pressure changes are conveyed from the mouth to the ear canal via the so-called Eustachian tube. The microphone detects the pressure shifts and transcribes them into electrical signals, which are sent to a computer that then converts them into commands to steer the wheelchair.

The chair, invented by Ravi Vaidyanathan at the University of Southampton and Lalit Gupta of Southern Illinois University Carbondale, is an improvement on present technology, New Scientist says.

Quadriplegics typically have to suck or blow into a straw, or move a computer cursor to guide the wheelchair, which can be unhygienic or irritating.

The tongue-guided device is to be launched by a Cleveland, Ohio, company by the end of the year, according to the report, which appears in next Saturday's issue of the British science weekly. - Sapa-AFP

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