(Image source: TechCrunch)

BY CATIE LAU

ANCHOR CHRISTINA HARTMAN

Facial expressions are a universal way to show how a person is feeling, but thanks to researchers at Miyazaki University, these same expressions can now show where a person wants to go--and take them there.

Hiroki Tamura and his research team have developed a wheelchair that responds to cues from the expressive facial muscles. DigInfo TV explains how this remarkable new technology is used.

Anchor: “The wheelchair can be turned right and left by blinking the right and left eyes, and stopped by clenching the teeth.  To start the wheelchair moving forward, the user clenches their teeth once, and while it is moving they can clench their teeth again to stop.”

Tamura describes the purpose behind the idea in TIME Magazine’s ‘Techland’:

"The system is intended for people who are paralyzed from the neck down and people who are gradually losing the use of their muscles due to muscular dystrophy or ALS.  … So we wanted to create a system for controlling an electric wheelchair using the expressive [facial] muscles, which remain functional at a relatively late stage of dystrophy."

But how easily will individuals in these late stages of dystrophy be able to use the wheelchair?  In November 2010, Tamura and his team published some of their initial findings in “Intelligent Robotics and Applications.” 

In an experiment designed to test ease of use, Tamura’s team put three subjects through an obstacle course using the wheelchair prototypes--one of them with experience using the technology, and two without.  Results showed that the experienced subject performed only marginally better than those who had never used it before, and improved quickly.

“From their experiments, we showed that the control of our proposed system is easy and our proposed system does not need a lot of training for the user.”

Tamura says that he hopes to find a business to commercialize the product by next year, and according to Popular Science, there will be a few changes before it hits the market.

“In the future, the researchers plan to ditch the somewhat unsightly electrodes in favor of a system embedded in goggles, which will be wirelessly synced with the chair. Hopefully that's possible--the electrodes actually look pretty effective, and this chair could be a life-changing invention for those currently without independent movement.”