Our research presents a cost-effective navigation system for electric wheelchairs that utilizes the tongue as a human-machine interface (HMI) for disabled individuals. The user controls the movement of the wheelchair by wearing a small neodymium magnet on their tongue, which is held in place by a suction pad. The system uses low-cost electronics and sensors, including two electronic compasses, to detect the position of the magnet in the mouth. One compass estimates the magnet's position while the other is used as a reference to compensate for static magnetic fields. A microcontroller processes the data using a computational algorithm that takes the mathematical formulations of the magnetic fields as input in real time. The system has been tested using real data to control an electric wheelchair, and it has been shown that a trained user can effectively use tongue movements as an interface for the wheelchair or a computer.
Keywords: handicapped; intelligent wheelchair; robotics.