Severely disabled people have few options when choosing practical machine interfaces and eyes are often the only reliably controlled body parts that can be interfaced with. Sufficient tracking of eyes enough to be able to reliably control external devices is not easy and has not been cheap, but researchers at Imperial College London are changing that by employing off-the-shelf components.
Using parts costing around $30, the team was able to build a device able to do gaze position tracking in 2D and 3D at a sample rate over 120 Hz with a 0.5–1 degree of visual angle resolution. The engineers showed off the capability of the controller by having users play the classic Pong video game using only their eyes.
More from the Institute of Physics: Researchers develop low-cost device to control computer with your eyes…
Abstract in Journal of Neural Engineering: Ultra-low-cost 3D gaze estimation: an intuitive high information throughput compliment to direct brain–machine interfaces
