Head mouse system based on gyro- and opto-sensors

We proposed the mouse to control a computer mouse with head rotations and eye blinks so that the severe disabled person can use a computer. We compared the performance of the proposed mouse to that of a general computer mouse and to that of alternative mouses such as Quick glance using eye movements and a Camera mouse using face movements. The mouse positions were estimated using gyro sensors that can measure the angular velocity of head rotations, and mouse events such as clicks/double clicks were detected using opto-sensors that can detect blinking of the eyes. We could eliminate the need to perform the cumbersome task of periodically removing the accumulated error. We facilitated intuitive control of the mouse by using a nonlinear relative coordinates system with dead zones. We added circuitry to opto-sensors for event detection in order to reduce the influence of the ambient light changes. As a result, we could increase the mouse movements and events accuracy. The proposed mouse showed superior performance about 21% in the experiment of the 20 times clicks, about 25% of Dasher, and about 37% of on-screen keyboard, respectively. The mouse is also better than Camera Mouse, which is used along with a web cam.