An Electrical Stimulator for Sensory Substitution

Author

Pereira, Mauro C. ; Kassab, Fuad, Jr.

Author_Institution

Dept. of Mechatronics Eng., Univ. Catolica Dom Bosco, Campo Grande

fYear

2006

fDate

Aug. 30 2006-Sept. 3 2006

Firstpage

6016

Lastpage

6020

Abstract

This work presents an electrical stimulator system for use in sensory substitution (SS), as a mobility aid for visually handicapped people. The whole system passes visual information via cutaneous stimulation, and consists of a webcam, a PC, dedicated hardware to generate stimuli and a 15times20 electrode matrix. The same system can also be used in psycophysical and somesthesic research, or even for SS of deaf people, by changing the input signal from a camera to a microphone, and adapting its control software. Circuits for pixel addressing, for signal generation and for switching are described, as well as the software involved in generating a pulse train, which configures the stimuli patterns

Keywords

handicapped aids; sensory aids; PC; cutaneous stimulation; deaf people; electrical stimulator; microphone; mobility aid; psycophysical research; sensory substitution; signal generation; somesthesic research; visual information; visually handicapped people; webcam; Cameras; Circuits; Control systems; Deafness; Electrodes; Hardware; Matrices; Microphones; Pulse generation; Signal generators;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society, 2006. EMBS '06. 28th Annual International Conference of the IEEE

Conference_Location

New York, NY

ISSN

1557-170X

Print_ISBN

1-4244-0032-5

Electronic_ISBN

1557-170X

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/IEMBS.2006.260380

Filename

4463179