EOG signal detection for home appliances activation

Eye movement is the most common way for paralysis patients to communicate. Eye movement can be used by the paralysis patients and armless persons to perform simple tasks, for examples to activate a system in order to get attention or to switch home appliances on and off when they are alone. This study investigates the reliability of EOG signals for activating home appliances. A replica of a living room with a fixed location of the television and a switch was set up and the EOG signals were recorded when the subjects were sitting and standing at various positions. Various distances between the subject and the television and gaze angles were considered to obtain optimum EOG signals. An algorithm to detect the occurrence of the EOG signals was developed and its performance was examined. It was found that the proposed eye movement technique could produce clear EOG signals which are suitable for activating home appliances and the success percentage of the algorithm is 92%.