Wearable tongue tracker for silent speech interfaces

MagTrack is a lightweight, wearable device that utilizes magnetic fields to track tongue movements, enabling silent speech recognition and other applications like speech therapy.

Background

Silent speech interfaces (SSIs) aim to restore communication for individuals who have lost their voice but retain the ability to articulate, such as those who have undergone a laryngectomy. SSIs offer a potential alternative to current alaryngeal speech methods, which often result in unnatural-sounding voices and can lead to social isolation. These interfaces rely on accurate and con­tinuous tracking of tongue movements to convert articulatory information into speech.

Current approaches to tongue movement tracking for SSIs, primarily relying on electromagnetic articulographs (EMAs), present significant limitations. While commercially available EMAs offer high spatial accuracy, they are bulky, expensive, and not designed for continuous, everyday use outside of a laboratory setting. This restricts their practicality for SSI applications, which require a wearable and user-friendly design for seamless integration into daily life.

Technology description

MagTrack is a novel, lightweight, and wearable electromyography device designed for tongue motion tracking. The device consists of a small inertial measurement unit sensor attached to the tongue and an eyeglass frame that generates a magnetic field. As the user speaks, the sensor captures the variations in the magnetic field, which are then processed by integrated software to provide three-dimensional positional and orientational information about tongue movement.

Unlike commercially available electromyography devices that are bulky and not suitable for everyday use, MagTrack is lightweight, wearable, and easy to set up. The device connects to a computer via USB, eliminating the need for extra hardware for data capture and processing. While MagTrack’s spatial tracking accuracy is currently lower than that of commercial devices, its wearability and ease of use make it a promising tool for silent speech interface applications, speech therapy, and second language learning.

Benefits

• MagTrack is a lightweight and wearable device that can be used to track tongue movement.
• It is easy to set up and use, and it provides real-time visualization of tongue movement data.
• MagTrack has the potential to be used for a variety of applications, including silent speech interfaces, tongue-controlled rehabilitation devices, and basic and clinical speech studies.
• MagTrack can be used to provide visual feedback of tongue movement during speech therapy and language learning.

Commercial applications

• Silent communication
• Assistive technology
• Speech therapy
• Language learning
• Medical diagnostics

Publication link

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37146629/