A Brazilian research team invented a wheel chair that the user can operate using his/her facial expressions. (Images from HooBox.com)
Last year, Apple surprised the world with a new generation of iPhones that use facial recognition; and even though it is a first in the cellphone industry, facial recognition is not really new. Just like fingerprints, facial recognition is a biometric feature. Software and devices have sensed facial characteristics and compares them to stored data to identify a person for some time. Some of the technologies used to achieve facial recognition include 3D face mapping, thermal imaging, skin surface texture analysis and many others that allow the software to make an accurate decision on the identity of the person using it. Today, facial recognition is used in casinos, dating sites, law enforcement, credit card companies, social media, bars and restaurants, some upscale hotels and schools in the UK. However, nobody has imagined it could be used the way Dr. Pinheiro has.
Dr. Paulo Pinheiro is a Brazilian scientist who is behind the creation of HOOBOX a startup that aims to improve people’s health, security and transportation by detecting and monitoring their behaviors. As the story goes, Dr. Pinheiro got the idea to create his company HOOBOX after he saw a young girl in a wheelchair at an airport. The girl made an impression on Pinheiro because even though she could not use her hands to operate her wheelchair and needed her dad to push her around, she had a great smile. Pinheiro thought that it would probably make a huge difference in her life if she could capitalize on her beautiful. “What if that smile could help her move around,” he questioned himself. Now while that might sound a philosophical idea, Pinheiro meant it literally. That story is a few years old, but in the last 2 years Pinheiro and his team at HOOBOX finally came up with an answer to that question.
The Wheelie 7 is an AI-driven accessory system to motorized wheelchairs that enables its users to operate their wheelchair using their facial expressions. The system can register up to 12 different facial expressions for every user. HOOBOX has been working with Intel to improve Wheelie 7, using Intel’s RealSense 3D camera. Pinheiro explained that they needed such a high-tech camera to make sure that the system is properly reading every facial expression for what it really is. Without Intel’s camera, Wheelie 7 can only detect 1 out of 10 facial expressions. With the RealSense camera, Wheelie 7 not only detect every facial expression, but the camera does not even have to face the user directly; the camera can be placed 60 degrees away from the center and still read the user’s face accurately.
Now, for being such a sophisticated system, one might think that Wheelie 7 will require a lot of processing power, but it is the opposite. Wheelie 7 does not require the use of a cloud or GPUs. With just an Intel core processor of the 5th generation, Wheelie 7 operates smoothly and store all the data necessary. But that still won’t be enough to operate Wheelie 7. Since the system is always reading facial expressions, the team knew that users would find it difficult to control Wheelie 7 during a conversation. Now the challenge would be to stop the system from processing every facial expression. At first, the research team programmed a couple of commands so that the system would stop automatically when the user starts a conversation. However, early users of the system reported that it was not helpful. Now, the team is working on giving the user the freedom to shut the system off when not need it and turn it back on when ready to use it again.
Pinheiro can see future adaptations of the system such as reading people’s behaviors. However, using computers to read people’s faces and behaviors poses the question of ethic and freedom. Who is the technology safe with? Even if Wheelie is recommended to quadriplegic patients, can all of them really use facial expressions? Is it really safe for all to rely on a person’s ability to use facial expressions to operate a motorized wheelchair?
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