The “MAGIC KEY” Project

The Magic Key Project , developed at the Superior School of Technology and Management of Guarda (Portugal), aims at the development of simple, economical and functional solutions that facilitate the access to the new information and communication technologies by people whose physical difficulties hinder or make this access very difficult.

We have developed three solutions which satisfy different users' needs .

1 - Magic Key

The Magic Key solution allows tetraplegic people, with no hands movement, to completely control the computer mouse. This solution uses an adapted WEB CAM to catch the images of the user's head. The natural movements of the head, even with reduced amplitude, allow locating the mouse cursor in the desired pixel. Blinking is used to click the mouse buttons, whereas all possible combinations of clicks are feasible .

2 - MagicKey Eye Control

The MagicKey Eye Control solution allows the control of the computer mouse only with the movements of the eyes. This solution uses a high definition cam that allows catching one of the user's eyes with great detail. After the calibration process, the application determines the place of the monitor the user is looking at, and places the mouse cursor there. This place is independent of the relative position of the user's head, whose freedom of movement ranges from 10cm in the horizontal line and 8cm in the vertical line. With a graphical resolution of 1024*768 it is possible to locate the mouse cursor on top of a size 12 font character. This application can be used by completely immobilized people who only move their eyes or by people who have some spasms in the head but still have the capacity to fix a determined point.

3 -MagicKey Joystick

This simple solution allows transforming any joystick or gamepad into a mouse controller. Due to the possibility of customizing the configuration of a set of parameters, such as the speed, the acceleration, auto click or the hysteresis, it is possible that the people with tremors in their hands, or small movements only in one finger, can use this system to interact with the computers.

New technical solutions to answer other types of difficulties are in their final phase of development

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We are looking for enterprise or institutional partners with whom we can establish cooperation agreements in this area of technology in order to help handicapped people access the world of technology.

Contacts:

Prof. Luis Figueiredo,

ESTG Guarda, Portugal

www.magickey.ipg.pt

magickey@ipg.pt