Send an e-mail – using your tongue

One of the most serious after-effects of being involved in a traffic accident is getting a spinal cord injury. In the US alone, there are almost a quarter of a million paraplegics, people with spinal cord injuries, while the number in Denmark is “only” 3,000. About half of these are tetraplegics – which means that they are paralysed from the neck down. These people need assistance for everything.

At SMI, Center for Sensory-Motor Interaction, at Aalborg University, associate professor, PhD Lotte NS Andreasen Struijk is working on a project which hopefully will enable these people to get on the internet, write e-mails and send text messages on their own.

“Colloquially, the project is known as ”the tongue project.” We use an acrylic palatal brace like the one many children have worn when having their teeth straightened. In this, we place a number of sensors which the user will then be able to control using his or her tongue,” Lotte N.S. Andreasen Struijk, who works on the project with her colleague, lecturer Romulus Lontis, explains about the project.

In practice, it works by the user getting a tiny metal unit implanted in the tip of the tongue. This metal unit is used for activating the sensors.

Play Packman with your tongue

Lotte NS Andreasen Struijk works with various models. One is a system consisting of 12 sensors that work like the keypad on a mobile phone, on which it is also possible to write messages – texs. In addition, there needs to be a kind of miniature joystick, enabling the person to navigate on a computer screen – or for instance play computer games.

"But of course we do not intend for the users to be sitting at the computer with a lead from their mouth to the computer. Therefore we contacted CISS in order to find a solution to communicating wirelessly between the computer and the palatal keypad,” Lotte N. S. Andreasen Struijk points out.

Vice director in CISS, assistant professor Henrik Schiøler is working on that challenge. And he has joined forces with PhD student Trung Dung Ngo.

"The biggest challenge is actually the energy supply. In order for the sensors on the palatal keypad to work, there has to be a current – but the users must not experience electric shocks, so the current has to be minimal,” Henrik Schiøler explains.

Possible test this summer

He and Trung Dung Ngo are currently considering a number of solutions, each with its own challenges. For instance, a battery obviously should not get wet…

The other challenge is finding a wireless technology that will perform even with such low current – but Lotte N. S. Struijk is optimistic.

"CISS possesses the competences when it comes to embedded software – and another advantage for us is that they’re located just around the corner, so it is easy for us to put our heads together. And Henrik Schiøler is full of ideas, so it is my hope that we will be able to perform the first tests in collaboration with persons with spinal cord injuries during the summer of 2007," she tells.

The tongue project was originally initiated with the help of funding from The Danish Research Fund for Technology and Science (now The Danish Research Council for Technology and Production Sciences and The Obel Family Fund, but now it is partially funded by the spin-off company TKS A/S which was established on the basis of the project by Aalborg University in collaboration with the companies NOVI Innovation and SAHVA Innovation. The aim is to make the palatal keypad mature enough for production within a couple of years.