A team of researchers at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras has created devices to assist people with disabilities. Two devices created by the students can help to hear disabled to react to specific alert sounds like the ringing of a doorbell or crying of a baby etc. Another device can help people with speech disabled to communicate.
Device for people with hearing disability
The first device called ‘Vibe’ is a wearable device that vibrates for acoustic sounds around a person with a hearing impairment. Vibe features a multitude of sound patterns that are recognized using a microphone and voice recognition modules. Vibe will alert the hearing impaired about a specific sound such as a doorbell, alarm, or a crying child. It will be compact and wearable as a watch. It is a simple way of providing vibration input for the pre-identified surrounding sounds, with each such sound corresponding to a specific vibration and blinking LEDs to alert the user.
Device for people with speech disability
The second device, ‘iGest’ will function as an alternative and augmentative communication device for persons with cerebral palsy. It will recognize the gestures of those with limited motor skills and convert them into audio output through a smartphone. It aims to address issues of speech impairment and motor impairments faced by persons with cerebral palsy.
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The devices are being developed by the Centre for Rehabilitation Engineering and Assistive Technology (CREATE). Both devices are embedded systems that will bring the latest developments from IoT and ML to wearable assistive devices.
Highlighting the need for indigenous development of assistive devices, Prof Anil Prabhakar, head, CREATE-IIT Madras, and faculty, department of electrical engineering, IIT Madras, said, “Due to the non-availability of affordable and sustainable assistive devices and systems, the hearing-impaired are excluded from the mainstream and inclusive education. Also, the imported devices cannot be afforded by most people.”
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Further, Prof. Anil Prabhakar said, “The cost of the product is kept low and to be less than Rs 5000, so that it is an affordable device for its basic functionality. The advance of technology and the advent and availability of low-cost microcontrollers and sensors allows us to come up with this unique low-cost device.”
As per the last census, 20 percent of the Indian population suffered from a motor disability. Such individuals will frequently go in for occupational therapy. In addition, there are those who require physiotherapy only on occasion (due to a strained muscle, or bad posture). iGest will cater to a large number of such individual cases.
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