Preliminary assessment of Tongue Drive System in medium term usage for computer access and wheelchair control

Tongue Drive System (TDS) is a wireless, wearable assistive technology that enables individuals with severe motor impairments access computers, drive wheelchairs, and control their environments using tongue motion. In this paper, we have evaluated the TDS performance as a computer input device using ISO9241-9 standard tasks for pointing and selecting, based on the well known Fitts´ Law, and as a powered wheelchair controller through an obstacle course navigation task. Nine able-bodied subjects who already had tongue piercing participated in this trial over 5 sessions during 5 weeks, allowing us to study the TDS learning process and its current limiting factors. Subjects worn tongue rings made of titanium in the form of a barbell with a small rare earth magnetic tracer hermetically sealed inside the upper ball. Comparing the results between 1^st and 5^th sessions showed that subjects´ performance improved in all the measures through 5 sessions, demonstrating the effects of learning.