Tongue-Rudder: A Glossokinetic-Potential-Based Tongue–Machine Interface

Glossokinetic potentials (GKPs) are electric potential responses generated by tongue movement. In this study, we use these GKPs to automatically detect and estimate tongue positions, and develop a tongue-machine interface. We show that a specific configuration of electrode placement yields discriminative GKPs that vary depending on the direction of the tongue. We develop a linear model to determine the direction of tongue from GKPs, where we seek linear features that are robust to a baseline drift problem by maximizing the ratio of intertask covariance to intersession covariance. We apply our method to the task of wheelchair control, developing a tongue-machine interface for wheelchair control, referred to as tongue-rudder. A teeth clenching detection system, using electromyography, was also implemented in the system in order to assign teeth clenching as the stop command. Experiments on off-line cursor control and online wheelchair control confirm the unique advantages of our method, such as: 1) noninvasiveness, 2) fine controllability, and 3) ability to integrate with other EEG-based interface systems.

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