The Tongue-Powered Test Drive
Narratively - July 30, 2014

A diving accident in April 2009 left Jason DiSanto a C4 quadriplegic, paralyzed from the neck down. The injury resulted in a lot of pain, and when that pain was coupled with the reality of being in a wheelchair for the rest of his life, DiSanto admits he was at first “overwhelmed with my situation.”… DiSanto, forty, describes himself as “pretty tech savvy” and up on all “the latest gadgets.” His interest was piqued by the Tongue Drive System, and in short order he found himself involved in the testing of Maysam Ghovanloo’s creation. “I thought it was a neat idea on how to control the wheelchair, and so I got involved with the trials and have been involved ever since,” DiSanto says… Ghovanloo, forty-one, an associate professor at the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Georgia Tech, has been working on the Tongue Drive System since 2005 and holds a patent on the technology. The magnet generates a small magnetic field that is picked up by sensors in a headset worn by the operator. When the operator moves his or her tongue, the sensors detect changes in the field, and that information is then turned into directional commands.


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