Aidex - Intelligence to aide Dexterity

for hackABILITY challenge

Vision and Objective

Integration of off-the-shelf technology to provide hands free controls. Target beneficiary is the tetraplegia community (individuals with limited or no movement of 4 limbs approximately 140 thousand in North America)

Target system cost below $1000.

Target User Characteristics

• Persons with spinal cord injuries resulting in quadriplegia: little physical movement except for voice, eyes, breath (respirator-cycle limited) and possibly limited motion in a finger (no movement when cold)
• Hearing and vision is functional.
• Requires respirator 24/7 via tracheostomy.
• System needed for both wheelchair and bed reclining positions
• Currently uses a mouth pointer stick to control touch screen.

Solution Set Functionality: Complete hands free control

• Environmental control: temperature, cooling, lights, appliances, etc.
• Cell phone – dialing call lists or by number and rapidly answering incoming
• Computer control –keyboard and mouse
• Media remote control
• Wheel chair controls – alternative to thumb control (control may be lost due to degrading physical ability & fatigue)
• Voices commands primary with emergency back-up (possibly eye control), in case of voice loss.
• Control device must be mobile and include power back-up in case of outage.

Solution Impact

Reduces time to activate controls and minimizes effort and physical fatigue on user.