The Study of Assistive Technologies for the Disabled.

• Main Authors: Hai Huang, 黃海
• Other Authors: Mu-Chun Su
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2000
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/89603912999613266030

碩士 === 淡江大學 === 電機工程學系 === 88 === With the great improvement of technology, such as computers, many of disabilities are able to make their life better and solve their problems of study and work, and even increase their degree of independence. This thesis includes two researches. The first on is focused on the recognition system of sign language for deaf people. Sign language is the main communication way of deaf, however, normal people who have never learnt sign language would not know the meaning of those signs. Therefore, the communication with normal people for deaf people becomes much more inconvenient. Due to this reason, we hope to create a convenient tool that enables the communication between the deaf and normal people, so we designed a speaking aid with a pair of EMI gloves and ultrasonic trackers 3D. The second research is focused on the human-machine interface designed for physical disabilities. In current society, computers play very important roles in many fields. And the ways we live are keeping changed, from entertainment (consumer electronic products and PC game industry), vocational work (computer science engineer, etc.) to the popularization of World Wide Web. All of these are enough to explain the impact that computers bring to human. When we are enjoying the advantages that computers brought to us, we can’t ignore spinal cord injuries (SCI) persons who are not able to obtain these advantages equally to us. They are not able to use computers through typical mouse and keyboard, smoothly, so they can’t enjoy all the benefits that computer provides, and more over, they even lose many job opportunities and turn out the result of doing little-income job or even not possible to find a job. Therefore, how to design a good human-machine interface for SCI persons is a task of great urgency. It is difficult for persons with hand malfunction to manipulate a traditional keyboard because there are about one hundred small-sized buttons on a keyboard. Besides, using a separate pointing device (e. g. mouse) is also quite difficult for them. In this paper, we propose an alternative computer access system designed specially for them, which not only can output standard keycodes but also incorporate keys that provide mouse emulation. In addition, the LED display allows the user to see the button that is going to be typed.The experimental results confirm that the proposed computer access system can help the persons with hand malfunction. In addition, we also designed a low-cost sipping-and-puffing switch to help SCI persons operate the interfaces.