摘要或動機

In the fast-paced environment of a hospital intensive care unit (ICU), good doctor-patient communication is essential. However, medical conditions and devices often inhibit a patient’s ability to speak, write or type. Current assistive communication devices are either prohibitively expensive or cumbersome and time-consuming, creating a gap in communication during a patient’s first days in the ICU. This project applies computer vision to develop a low-cost software solution that bridges this gap by enabling patients to generate words with eye movements. In the system, a webcam acquires an image of the patient, and an image processing algorithm classifies patient’s gaze as pointing in one of eight directions. Each direction corresponds to an option on a graphical menu presented to the patient on the computer’s display. The patient can use the menu to select a preformed phrase from a list of common phrases. Patients desiring to express more complex ideas can type custom words using the menu as an ambiguous keyboard (similar to a phone keypad). In either case, the patient-generated text will be displayed on screen and read aloud through the computer’s audio system. The only hardware requirements are an existing computer and a $6 webcam. The program can process and respond to an image in 148ms. A new user can be trained in approximately 10 minutes, and after training can type a simple phrase such as “hello world” in 40 seconds. While further testing and improvement is required before the system will be ready for implementation, the project shows promise as a low-cost solution to ICU communication.