A team of students at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Madras, has indigenously created devices to assist people with disabilities to hear and react to specific sounds of everyday life – like the doorbell ringing or a baby crying, etc. A second device has also been developed which can help people with speech disabilities in their communication.
Vibe and iGest
The first device for hearing has been named ‘Vibe’ a simple wearable-like device that vibrates according to the sounds around the person. The device’s features consist of many sound patterns with voice-based recognition and a microphone. The compact design, very much like a watch makes it easy to wear and carry around. It has become so far the simplest way of producing vibration-based inputs for pre-identified sounds and LEDs to the users who have a hearing impairment, according to reports.
The second device on the list is named ‘iGest’ – it functions as an alternative communication medium for people having cerebral palsy. The device recognizes the restricted motor skills gestures of the person wearing it and converts them into audio output through a smartphone. It aims to address both the issues of problems in speech and motor skills that are faced by them. According to the census of 2011, 20 percent of the Indian population suffers from one or another form of motor disability, requiring frequent occupational therapy. Some of them might also require additional physiotherapy on certain issues like correcting lousy posture or strained muscle. iGest will be catering to many of such cases.
Affordable Assistive Devices
The Centre for Rehabilitation Engineering and Assistive Technology (CREATE) of IIT Madras is developing these devices, embedded with systems that will be incorporating the latest developments from IoT and ML to wearable devices assisting the impaired. Professor Anil Prabhakar, Head at CREATE-IIT, highlighted the need for developing affordable and sustainable assistive devices in the country – as the main reason why the hearing impaired are left out of mainstream education is that they are unable to afford the imported assistive devices.
He further goes on to add that, for the devices to serve their basic purposes to their fullest, the cost has been kept low and is being sold at less than ₹ 5,000 so that it is affordable for the people at large who require it. The advancement of technology and the availability of cheap microcontrollers and sensors have allowed researchers to come up with unique devices at such low costs.
