Generales

A new app designed by a bioengineering student will allow people with motor disabilities to write with their eyes.

Alejandro Uribe, a student of bioengineering at the UdeA School of Engineering has developed a new app intended for people with motor disabilities.

“This solution allows those with motor disabilities to use their mobile devices to write with their eyes,” Uribe said. The app allows anyone to use eye movements to write. 

“It is basically an image processing algorithm that detects eye movement and allows users to select a character with an eye blink so that the app can type it.  It is closely related to computer programming,” explained Uribe.

The application uses OpenCV, a leading open source computer vision library developed by Intel. It is equipped with a face detection algorithm that captures an image of the user’s face and detects eye movement through eye tracking technology. The app is available for Android devices including smartphones and tablets. 

Juan Fernando Sánchez, a computing engineer who suffers from muscular dystrophy (a disease that affects an individual’s ability to vocalize and move) also developed a similar application that allows him to write using his mouth.     

Uribe currently works to improve the prototype. His goal is to promote the development of this type of solutions to improve the quality of life of people with disabilities.