Augmentative and Alternative Communication device based on eye-blink detection and conversion to Morse-code to aid paralyzed individuals

There are several medical disorders that can lead to an individual becoming paralyzed or having motor speech disorders that inhibits speech or voice production. Conditions such as Locked-In Syndrome (LIS) or motor neuron diseases such as Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) and Cerebral Palsy are among the common diseases that affect speech. In all or most such cases, the patient loses the ability to communicate with the external world in an effective manner even though his intelligence is mostly unaffected. Not only does that cause extreme distress to that individual, but also to his family and friends. Some customized Augmentative and Alternative Communication(AAC) devices have been developed that uses signals from the patient and converts them into some form of data that can be communicated but such devices are very expensive and are practically out of reach for most people. In this document, we have designed an extremely low priced device that reads and converts eye-blinks from the patient to a universally accepted communication code-The Morse code.