Design and Implementation of a Prototype of an Electrooculographic Signal
Processing System oriented to control – by wink – the Instant Messaging
Environment Telegram for Users with Motor Limitations in Upper Limbs
María Claudia Guzmán Medina Ursula Fernanda Salazar Roggero
Universidad Peruana de Universidad Peruana de
Ciencias Aplicadas Ciencias Aplicadas
u812244@upc.edu.pe u201013564@upc.edu.pe
Abstract
This paper is based upon the design and
implementation of a Human Computer Interface (HCI) as
a support tool for people with upper limb disabilities,
especially those with difficulties in speech, so as to
interact and communicate by Instant Messaging
Environments (IME). For this, we have implemented the
appropriate hardware for acquisition and conditioning of
the electrooculografic signal. As for the software, we have
developed a wink pattern recognition algorithm composed
of three processes: zero crossing technique adapted to the
level of direct current (DC), comparison of the energy
threshold and the Pearson correlation coefficient. Besides,
a virtual keyboard was implemented to allow users to
select, by means of winks, the characters that they wanted
to transmit messages by the IME Telegram. Finally, the
system was tested by potential users obtaining a success
rate of 94.90% that proof how effective and reliable it is.
1. Introduction
According to the World Health Organization, more than
one billion people, it means 15 % of the world’s
population, suffer from a kind of disability [1]. In Latin
American and the Caribbean, according to Population
Surveys, about 85 million people report having at least one
disability and the 90.9% of these countries present the
physical disability as the most frequent [2]. This situation
demonstrates the need to develop systems to enhance the
quality of life of such people, so as to provide resources to
function autonomously for their daily activities.
Engineering meets the necessary tools to boost new
technology and applications that in this case, it should be
used to support disabled people to improve their lifestyle
by letting them on to access to some communication
applications that are currently used as the well-known
Instant Messaging Environment. Therefore, in this
document, it is specifically explained that the necessary
stages to design and implement an interface
communication between a user with motor disabilities in
978-1-4673-9461-1/15/$31.00 ©2015 IEEE
Sergio Salas Arriarán
Universidad Peruana de
Ciencias Aplicadas
sergio.salas@upc.edu.pe
upper limbs and other users by the IME Telegram, hence
creating a favorable environment for this population.
It should be noted that this is not an isolated effort
because, currently, there are companies and research
groups devoted to develop new products for the benefit of
disabled people. For example, there are peripheral tools
based upon image processing, as [3] and [4], which
recognize the position of the pupil through an internal
Infrared (IR) camera and simulate a virtual mouse to
control desktops or laptops. However, their operation
depends on the size of the display and the distance to this,
can affect or be affected by other radiation emitting
devices, need a mounting system in a fixed display, may
not work properly in bright places and, mainly, their prices
are quite expensive. In addition to this, [5] and [6] create
individual solutions, especially software, for people with
different impairments. Little by little, those and others
organizations are minimizing the disadvantages that people
with disabilities experience in their day-to-day routines.
In this case, the developed system uses (EOG) signals
obtained through adhesive electrodes placed on the face,
which record the eye movements during the wink. It serves
as a pattern selection of certain buttons within a virtual
keyboard and the character of the selected button is typed
in the active window of IME Telegram, as it had been
written from a physical keyboard. It indicates that we have
developed a noninvasive prototype, as it could be one with
IR radiation, that in conjunction with a virtual interface,
provides a very inexpensively tool for distance
communication, because used low-cost commercial
components, it is based on digital signal processing and
used a free IME. Finally, it can be used with other
technologies, such as audio, for that users with severe
motor disabilities, have the possibility to use IMEs like the
majority of the people around the world.
2. Methods
2.1. Information
The electrooculography is the acquisition of
bioelectrical signal originated between the cornea and
retina during the eye movement, which has amplitude eliminate the interference from the mains. However, the
between 50uV to 3.5mV and a bandwidth of 0 to 50 Hz second has a pass frequency of 0.5 to 250 Hz so as to wipe
[7]. For this study case, the EOG signal originated during out the continual component of the signal and the high
the wink has been analyzed and processed. frequencies, in order to avoid the saturation of the digitizer
Telegram is an IME created in 2013, which could be and the aliasing effect. Both have unity gain. Also, an
installed either on a mobile or on a desktop. Its main offset circuit is included that gives a Direct Current (DC)
advantages are the fact that it has a strong encryption, level of 1.67V to the signal and, finally, a dsPIC30F3014
based upon the cloud, to be a free and open source. More that digitizes the signal with a resolution of 12 bits and it is
detailed information about it could be found in [8]. serially transmitted at a speed of 57,600 bps, as it is
recommended in [9] and [10].
2.2. Structure of the developed
The developed system consists of two stages, hardware
and software, which are divided in sections as it is shown
in Figure 1. In the first stage, is performed the acquisition,
amplification, filtering, digitization and the serial
transmission of EOG signal. After that, in the second
stage, it is designed the graphical interface, the serial
reception, digital filtering, training, wink detection,
selection character and, finally, the writing on Telegram.

2.3. Hardware Implementation

For the proper acquisition of EOG signal, is necessary
to use three adhesive electrodes silver/silver chloride (Ag/
AgCI). Two should be placed vertically on the lower and
upper eyelid of any eye, whilst the third one is the
reference electrode and it is located on the forehead over
the frontal bone, as it is shown in the left side of the Figure Figure 2. Schematic circuit board
1. All electrodes are connected, via cables, to a circuit
board made for this prototype and shown in the Figure 2. 2.4. Software Implementation
It contains a preamplifier implemented with the The digitized EOG signal is transmitted through the
Integrated Circuit (IC) INA 129P having a gain of 113.27, serial/USB cable to a computer, where it is processed
and an amplifier implemented with the CI TL084 set to get using a sophisticated algorithm developed in the
a gain of 11. It also consists of Notch and Band-pass programming language C#, using the Visual Studio 2012
analog filters, which are explained in further detailed in Software.
[7]. The first is centered on 58.95 Hz and it is used to

Figure 1. General Diagram of the system developed

2
2.4.1. Graphical Interface Design
In this section, it is carried out the design of the
graphical environment as simple and complete as possible.
For this purpose, it has been created a virtual keyboard
formed by thirty buttons representing alphanumeric
characters, positioned with five rows and six columns.
Moreover, there is an independent button located on the
right side of the matrix as it is shown in Figure 3.
Likewise, it has two textboxes that display the user
prompts and the drawn-up text by a way of reference.
Figure 3. Graphical interface design: Virtual keyboard
2.4.2. Serial reception and digital filtering
For each sample of the digitized EOG signal, the final
frame broadcasted in the stage hardware consists of 4
bytes, which must be processed by the reception algorithm.
To do this, the storage size of the buffer must be set up in
4,096 bytes, as this allows carrying out applications in real
time. Subsequently, the received frame is analyzed in order
to detect the accurate information corresponding to the
EOG signal, stamping out the reference markers before it
is digitally filtered.
Even though the frequency components of the EOG
signal are from 0 to 50 Hz, for this application, it is not
necessary to have such a broad spectrum owing to the fact
that it is only intended to distinguish a wink from the other
eye movements. In this regard, the filter to design is a
35thorder low-pass with cutoff frequency 20 Hz. Thus, the
60 Hz harmonics that could not be debugged at stage
hardware are eliminated.
The filter design consists of calculating the coefficients
of the equation in differences that it is being described, it
means that, it is necessary to calculate the 36 “bk”
coefficients of (1), where “x(n)” represents the input signal
of the filter, “y(n)” the output signal and “N” the order of
this [11].
N seconds. During this period, the input signal is stored in a
y ( n )   bk x ( n  k )
k 0
Likewise, the Hamming window is used to complete the
filter design. That being so, the coefficients to calculate are
the resulting values of (2), where “fc” is the normalized
cutoff frequency and “wc” is the normalized cutoff angular
frequency.
bk  2 f c sen(nwc ) /( nwc )0.54  0.46 cos2n / N 
0n N (2)
Finally, with the estimated coefficients, it is on the point
of proceeding to make the digital filter for each received
sample. Thus, a signal, with less noise and interference, is
achieved, neither distortion nor phase shift, suitable for
being processed by the wink detection algorithm.
2.4.3. Training system
To have the accurate function of the proposed wink
detection algorithm in this paper, there must be a previous
training stage, which is to calculate the DC level of the
EOG signal and obtain the pattern wink of the
corresponding user.
The DC level indicates the average value of the signal
when the user does not make any eye movement, just
looking straight ahead. To calculate this value, in the
interface appears the message, “Look at the center of the
screen”, prompt that the user should executed during the
first 500 received samples by the program. Finally, the
arithmetic average of these samples is the DC level of the
processed signal, discriminating the first 90 in view of the
fact that it corresponds to the establishment of the filter, as
is shown in the left side of the Figure 4 (green-colored).
DC
LEVEL 1. Beginning
2. 1st ZC
3. 2nd ZC
4. 3rd ZC (end)
Figure 4. DC Level (green) and Pattern wink (red)
Over and above that, to get the user’s pattern wink, the
message “Make just one wink” is displayed for three
(1) buffer, from the sample 501 to 2,000, interval at which a
3
standard wink is developed. From the regarded buffer, the possible wink with the model pattern which was previously
samples that exclusively correspond to the performed wink stored. In this manner, it discards any eye movement or an
must be extracted. To achieve this, the Zero Crossing (ZC) interference of similar energy to the wink may be classified
technique adapted to the DC level is used, which establish as such it.
the beginning and end of the wink, from the times the
signal crosses the DC level. Initially, it is stored the first
number of sample in which this buffer is greater than or
equal to the 102% of the DC level.
This index is set as the beginning of the wink. Then, the
DC level crossings are found, it means, the indices
corresponding to the samples in which the signal crosses
through the DC level. Commonly, it happens three times:
the first one indicates that the peak of maximum amplitude
has already occurred, the second one indicates that the
peak of minimum amplitude has already occurred and the
third one indicates the end of the wink. To acquire these
positions, some conditions are established that consist of
comparing the DC level with the following stored samples,
from the index that corresponds to the beginning of the
wink onwards, storing the positions of the first sample that
meet the conditions of being lower or higher to the DC
level, as it is appropriate. Finally, the values of the signal
are stored from the beginning to end of the wink, as is
shown in Figure 4 (red-colored). This new buffer named
PATTERN is the model to compare the rest of the possible
winks performed by the users. All this procedure is
outlined in the flowchart of the Figure 5.

2.4.4. Wink Detection

Once defined the PATTERN vector, certain
characteristics that are different from other types of signals
must be extracted, which are used to compare with the
upcoming wink. For the developed algorithm, it has been
established that those parameters are the energy and the
Pearson correlation coefficient, whose equations are
respectively displayed in (3) and (4). More information
about it could be found in an in-depth detailed in [12].

N
EX   X 2 (3)
i 1 i
N
1
N
 (X
i 1
i  X )(Yi  Y ) (4)
rXY 
1 1
 
N N
( i 1
( X i  X ) 2 )( i 1
(Yi  Y ) 2 )
N N

Energy differentiates a voluntary wink from one which

is not, because the first has more intensity and duration,
which means greater amplitude and number of samples,
therefore more energy than the second one. What is more,
this allows differentiating a wink from a vertical eye
movement because a wink has lower amplitude than a
vertical movement and thus less energy. Besides, regarding
the Pearson correlation coefficient, it is quantitatively used
to compare the morphology of a signal regarded as a
4
Figure 5. Flowchart of collection pattern wink
In this section, the interface changed to display the
message “Working”. Then, a vector called BUFFER is
created and initialized to zeros. It will be the responsible
of storing future samples of a prospective wink. As for this
sense, the ZC technique adapted to the DC level is applied
to the new samples of the upcoming EOG signal. The part
of the signal that covers from the beginning to the third ZC
is catalogued like a prospective wink, so it is stored in the
BUFFER vector.
Once the prospective wink has been stored, its energy is
calculated using (3) and then it is compared with the
energy of the PATTERN vector as it is shown in (5). The
established margin to consider the energy of BUFFER as a
wink is 40 %, otherwise it is discarded.

0.6 * E PATRON  E BUFFER  1.4 * E PATRON (5)

If it meets the condition the foregoing condition, the

Pearson correlation coefficient of BUFFER with
PATTERN is calculated, as it is shown in (4). As with
energy, the margin is 40%, as it is shown in (6). Thus, if
the Pearson coefficient that was obtained meets the
condition, the BUFFER vector is considered as a wink,
otherwise it is discarded.

rPATRON BUFFER  0.4 (6)

Additionally, when a wink is detected, the PATTERN

vector is replaced by the values of this wink. Therefore,
the new values of energy and Pearson correlation
coefficient for this new PATTERN should be calculated.
Likewise, the BUFFER vector is initialized with zeros one
more time, to be filled with values of an upcoming
prospective wink. It is also applied, when the possibility of
the BUFFER values belong to a wink is discarded.
All this process is outlined in the flowchart of Figure 6.

2.4.5. Selection key and Writing on Telegram

To select each button of the virtual keyboard, the user
must perform two winks. For this purpose, vertical and
horizontal scanning of the keyboard is coordinated by
timers.
Figure 6. Flowchart of detection of wink
1. Select contact 1st letter
2. Select button enter In the first place, the vertical scanning of the rows is
controlled by Timer1, changing the background color of
3. Write word / phrase Ex. “o”
all the keys of a particular row for a period of 800 ms.
4. Wink when stay in “o” After that period, these keys get back to the original
button background color and the keys of the next row change the
color. This event is continuously repeated until a wink is
detected. When the first wink is detected, the Timer 1 is
defused and Timer 2 is activated. It has the same
performance as the previous one; however it doesn’t
5. Appears “o” send with button control the vertical scanning (from row to row), but the
horizontal scanning, (from key to key). Once located in the
row of interest, the user must perform another wink to
select the desired key. Finally, the corresponding character
Figure 7: Writing “o” character on Telegram to that key will be typed in the active window of Telegram,

5
in real time, as is shown in Figure 7. The Timer 2 is
defused and Timer 1 is activated to start the described TABLE 3
process again. USER
CORRECT INCORRECT
CHARACTERS CHARACTERS
3. Results U1 40 2
U2 35 7
It was carried out tests with users who had motor U3 40 2
limitations in upper limbs to validate the effectiveness of U4 40 2
the developed prototype. These tests consisted in UP5 41 1
UP6 41 1
generating and sending one phrase of 42 characters in an
UP7 42 0
active window of Telegram using the developed hardware TOTAL 279 15
and software. In that sense, the objective was to calculate
the amount of correct and incorrect characters selected by Table 3. Testing potential users - fifth attempt
the user through this mechanism, and therefore find the
error and effectiveness rate of the system. From the values obtained in these tests, the error and
Seven potential users from 20 to 45 years old performed effectiveness rate of the system, called “er” and “ef”
these tests. They belonged to different institutions and had respectively, are calculated through (7) and (8).
different physical limitations, as is shown in Table 1.

TABLE 1 Total _ Caracteres _ Incorrectos

er  *100 (7)
USER INSTITUTION DIAGNOSIS Total _ Caracteres
U1 OMAPED - SURCO Moderate Cerebral Palsy
U2 OMAPED - SURCO Severe Cerebral Palsy Total _ Caracteres _ Correctos
U3 INR Amputated Upper Limbs ef  *100 (8)
U4 INR Amputated Right Upper Limb
Total _ Caracteres
U5 INR Cord Lesion
U6 No specific Cord Lesion Finally, it is obtained that in the first attempt the
U7 No specific Radius Fracture effectiveness rate is 85.71 % and the error is 14.29 %;
Table 1. Data of potential users who made the test while the effectiveness of the fifth attempt increased to
94.90 % and the error is reduced to 5.10 %. This shows
Due to the most of the users were in contact with this that the system is appropriate whenever the user performs
sort of devices for the first time, they had to feel a process of prior adaptation.
comfortable with the electrodes on their face and practice
several sessions so that they could adapt to its operation. 4. Conclusion
For this reason, we monitored their progress in the use of
At the end of the study, after the tests and the performed
the prototype and compare the performance in their first
validations, it is concluded that the developed prototype is
and fifth attempt.
suitable to be used with people with motor limitations in
The obtained results in both cases are presented in
the upper limbs. It is important to mention that the users
Table 2 and Table 3, respectively.
must have a particular process of adaption depending on
TABLE 2 the disability they have. In addition to this, according to
CORRECT INCORRECT
the analysis, it was determined that to distinguish a wink of
USER the other eye movements, it is sufficient to analyze the
CHARACTERS CHARACTERS
U1 35 7 EOG signal into its frequency components from 0.5 to 20
U2 30 12 Hz, and the most important parameters are its energy and
U3 37 5 form. Also, the duration is not a useful parameter, so it is
U4 36 6 advisable to use the zero crossing technique to determine
U5 37 5 the beginning and end of a prospective wink.
U6 38 4 Finally, among the improvements proposed by the users
U7 39 3 themselves, it is significant to emphasize the use of
TOTAL 252 42 wireless electrodes, compatibility with mobile devices
Table 2. Testing potential users - first attempt such as tablets, extension to other Instant Messaging
Environments, adding a predictive keyboard and
complementation with applications of speech recognition.

6
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