Conception and Experimentation of a Communication Device with Adaptive Scanning

Abstract

For some people with motor disabilities and speech disorders, the only way to communicate and to have some control over their environment is through the use of a controlled scanning system operated by a single switch. The main problem with these systems is that the communication process tends to be exceedingly slow, since the system must scan through the available choices one at a time until the desired message is reached. One way of raising the speed of message selection is to optimize the elementary scanning delay in real time so that it allows the user to make selections as quickly as possible without making too many errors. With this objective in mind, this article presents a method for optimizing the scanning delay, which is based on an analysis of the data recorded in “log files” while applying the EDiTH system [Digital Teleaction Environment for People with Disabilities]. This analysis makes it possible to develop a human-machine interaction model specific to the study, and then to establish an adaptive algorithm for the calculation of the scanning delay. The results obtained with imposed scenarios and then in ecological situations provides a confirmation that our algorithms are effective in dynamically adapting a scan speed. The main advantage offered by the procedure proposed is that it works on timing information alone and thus does not require any knowledge of the scanning device itself. This allows it to work with any scanning device.