Welfare support-equipment for character input with head tilting and breathing

This paper describes support-equipment of operating a personal computer for users who have an obstacle on the regions of upper limb. The user wears a head set device with an angle sensor, and holds a plastic pipe connected to a pressure sensor in his or her mouth. Tilting his or her head and breathing are used for mouse cursor operation and characters input. Considering user's body conditions, the voluntary angle range of head tilting and strength of breathing are memorized to the controller beforehand, and obtained information is reflected for operations without fatigue. The character display board is used to indicate the Japanese characters and input options such as Back Space or Enter. Tilting motions change the indicated character and breathing actions can select and input the illuminated functions on the character display board. In test trial, it is confirmed that Japanese characters including Kanji and Katakana can be input with head tilting and breathing, instead of a general keyboard.