An Automatic Page Flipping System

for Disabled Readers

D. Prommin, S. Chaivisit, A. Sipitakiat
Department of Computer Engineering, Chiang Mai University
239 Huaykaew Rd., Muang, Chiang Mai 50200, Thailand
king_tokephla@hotmail.com, sarinporn_c@hotmail.com, arnans@eng.cmu.ac.th

Abstract-This paper presents a low-cost micro-controller

controlled page-flipping system that can help physically
disabled readers to flip through pages of a normal book. Our
current fourth-generation system is a result of a three-year long
empirical study. Our target audiences are disabled children and
individuals who have lost their upper limbs or have lost fine
control of their hands and arms. The flipping system consists of
a robotic arm that maneuvers two fans used to create vacuum
with enough suction to lift individual book pages. The arm
movement is controlled by switches that can be activated in the
form of a foot paddle, a joystick, or head-movement switch. We
have performed controlled testing of the system as well as field
experiments with disabled children. The results have shown
that when a book is well setup, the system can reach up to 95%
accuracy.
I. INTRODUCTION
This work presents a robotic-arm that can turn pages of a
normal book. Our goal is to create a system that can
introduce or bring back the joy of reading books to
physically disabled readers. Our current target group is
disabled persons who do not have fine control of their hands
and fingers. Such condition is typical with people who have
multiple disabilities, which require them to be seated on a
wheelchair. Such condition makes book reading impossible
without assistance from others. While digital text has
become widely available, extensive reading on a computer
screen is not eye-friendly. Proper reading devices, such as e-
book readers, are becoming available but still hard to come
by. Moreover, reading from a physical book remains an
activity many people enjoy. Sometimes the content of what
one reads is not the main concern. Rather, realizing that one
can choose to read a normal book if one wants is a kind of
empowerment that would be meaningful to many
handicapped persons. Our ultimate goal is to help readers
with disabilities to regain their enjoyment of book reading
and, thus, help integrate them, emotionally and physically,
into the social life of their communities.
II. EXISTING PAGE FLIPPING MECHANISMS
Flipping through pages of a book has been acknowledged
as a useful but challenging task. This task is not the same as
picking up unbounded pages, which is a task that printers
have mastered for decades. Turning pages of a bounded book
requires a gripper and a flipping mechanism. Both
components provide a page-turn action, which is a rotational
movement around the book spine.
Many gripping designs have been previously explored (see
a comprehensive review by Armstrong [1]). One approach is
to use polymers that can stick to paper. Young and
Figure 1. An illustration of a page flipping system in a US patent document
granted to Molchak and Taylor in 2001.
Nourbakhsh [2] have used polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS)
which has enough mechanical-bond to lift up a page while
still being able to later separate from the page with no
residue. Molchak and Taylor [3] have been granted a patent
in 2001 for a remote controlled page turner that utilizes
multiple fingers coated with similar polymers. Physical
mechanisms that can grip or slide under the desired page
have also been explored. Tomizawa et al. [4] created a
robotic system to remotely access books in a library. The
robot would move to the desired book, pick it up, and flip
through the pages while broadcasting the contents via a
camera. The flipping mechanism utilizes rotors that spin to
move itself under a page. While the system works well, it
relies on a book rest that only opens the book 90 degrees.
This would not be a comfortable position for human reading.
The most successful gripping approach can be found in
commercial book scanning machines used by large scale
book digitization projects such as Google Book Search [5].
Flipping pages in a scanner of this kind is most commonly
done through the use of air-suction techniques. Kirtas
Technologies is one of the main producers of commercial
automated book scanners. Kirtas has developed a system
called SureTurn that consists of a robotic arm with an
adjustable vacuum head that picks up the page. SureTurn
also utilizes “page fluffers” to puff air between pages which
assures only one page is picked up at a time [6]. Although
this kind of system can be extremely accurate, the sheer size
of the complete machine and its prohibitive cost make it
unsuitable as a personal book reader.
 Figure 2. Picture of the Kirtas APT bookscan 2400RA commercial book
scanning system.

This approach also assumes a narrowly opened page

position, just enough for cameras to take appropriate shots.
Again, this is not a comfortable posture for human reading.
Although there have been attempts to build page flipping
systems for disabled readers using this method (for an
example see [7]), there is still much to be improved upon.
The system presented in this paper also builds upon vacuum
and air fluffing systems, but adapts the design to make it
small and affordable enough for common use.

III. PREVIOUS IMPLEMENTATIONS

The initial prototype of our page flipping system was
created as part of a student term project in a micro-controller
class in 2008. This first design utilized a roller mounted on a
simple robotic arm. The arm would press the roller against
the desired page. The roller would then spin until it moves
underneath the page. The flipping action then takes place by
lifting and rotating the arm 180 degrees. Foot paddles were
used to control forward and backward flipping actions. This
version was constructed entirely with crafts materials.
Our team was encouraged to continue this work by
Figure 3. The various iterations of the page flipping system. The first and
submitting our design to the National Software Contest
second prototype (top and middle) relied on rollers and a moving arm to lift
program. A new platform was built. The concept of using a
the page. The third version (bottom) switched to a fan system.
roller remained but the mechanism was constructed with
acrylic, which was stronger and made the system more
durable. The robotic arm was replaced with a linear sliding Srisangwan School for disabled children in Chiang Mai. The
head adapted from a broken printer. This second design later project was awarded a grant from the IRPUS program
received the Merit Award from the 2009 i-CREATe SDC (Industrial and Research Projects for Undergraduate Students)
(Student Design Competition) in Singapore. A voice organized by The Thailand Research Fund.
command controller was added in this version allowing users This revision presented major design changes. It was
to control the flipping action through speech. A book mark difficult to ensure that only one page was turned with the
concept was also added. Users can memorize a page and roller approach. Thus, we used fans instead with the idea that
later return to that page when desired. fans can directly pick up the desired page. The fans would be
The third iteration of the system was created when our pressed down on the page creating a vacuum strong enough
team decided to pursue this project as part of our senior year to lift the page up. The Speech-control, bookmarks, the LCD
project. We established an official collaboration with the display, and some other auxiliary components were removed

Figure 4. Components of the latest page-flipping design. It uses metal frames to provide a robust structure for the robotic arm movement.
from this design. This decision was based on the feedback
we received from field testing with disabled children. We
have found that the children did not find these extra features
essential in actual day-to-day use. It is better to focus more
on making a reliable page flipping mechanism instead.
This third design iteration was built with acrylic. A robotic
arm was re-introduced with two fans mounted at the tip.
However, it turned out that acrylic was not stable enough to
support this new arm. The brittle material would crack and
break when the arm is forced down against a book during
development.
IV. THE CURRENT IMPLEMENTATION
The work presented in this paper is a fourth iteration of the
system. It is mainly an optimized implementation of the third
design. Instead of using acrylic, the fourth design uses metal
frames. Motors and fans were more professionally mounted.
This upgrade resulted in a much more reliable and robust
robotic arm movement. The final product eventually won the
“Best Prototype Award” at the i-CREATe 2010 student
design competition held in Shanghai, China.
A. System Components
The Robotic Arm: As illustrated in Figure 4, the arm is
driven by two gear-headed 9 Volts DC motors (component
#11 and #14 in Figure 4). The first motor (#11) is used to
move the fan up and down vertically allowing for the page-
grabbing function to take place. The other motor (#14) is
used to flip the page by rotating the entire robotic arm from
one side to the other. We placed magnets on key motor
1. Joystick Controller.
2. Foot Paddle.
3-4. Right, Left step-on buttons.
5. RJ-11 cable.
6. RJ-11 connector.
7. Power-plug. Used with 9V wall
adaptor.
8. On-Off switch.
9. Micro-controller (GoGo Board).
10. Cover. Protects the micro-controller.
11. Gear-headed 9V DC motor. Controls
the fan position.
12-13. Two 9V fans. Creates vacuum to
lift the page.
14. Gear-headed 9V DC motor. Controls
the arm position.
15. Mount panel for motor #14.
16. Ball-bearing. Keeps the fans pointing
downwards during a page-flip.
16. Infrared sensor. There is also an
infrared sensor at this position.
17 Blower. Fluffs the pages.
18. Gear-headed 9V DC Motor. Controls
the fin movement.
19. Flexible fin. Used to swipe the page.
20. Limit switch.
21. Hall-effect sensor.
22. Magnet. Calibrates arm position.
23. Hall-effect sensor.
24. Magnet. Calibrates fan position.
25. Supporting arm. Used to mount the
fan.
positions (#22 and #24) and used Hall-effect sensors (#21
and #23) to detect them as the arm moves. This allowed us to
calibrate and control the position of the arm movement. This
method also allowed for the use simple DC motors which
resulted in a much cheaper design in comparison to the use
of encoded DC motors, stepper, or servo motors.
Grabbing-Fans: Two fans (#12, #13) are positioned at the
tip of the robotic arm (#25). Their main function is to lie flat
on the desired page and create a vacuum to pick the page up.
The fan’s angle against the target was initially controlled
with a motor. But this turned out to be a faulty idea. We later
found that the fans worked better when mounted using ball
bearings (#16) and let gravity hold them in position. An
infrared sensor (also at #16) tells the system when the fan
has reached the page surface.
Swiping-Fin: The fin (#19) is designed to help flip the
page. It is constructed using a flexible strip. The system first
positions this fin on the correct side depending on the turning
direction. It then waits for the robotic arm to lift the page just
enough for it to slide itself under. Driven by a third gear-
headed DC motor (#18), the fin then swipes the page over
completing the page turn process. The fin movement is
guided by a curved bar (not shown in figure 4), which can
move up or down, allowing the fin to be adjusted for
different book thicknesses and sizes. There is also a limit
switch (#20) used to calibrate the fin’s start and stop
positions.
Blowers: Two blowers (#17) are used to “fluff” the pages,
which helps separate the top page from the remaining stack.
They are built with 9V miniature blower motors.

Figure 5. A foot paddle with two buttons allowed the reader to control the
page turn with their feet.
B. Page Turn Controllers
Our initial controller was a foot paddle (#2 in Figure 4). It
consists of two large switches (#3, #4), one each for a left
and right page turn, mounted underneath the paddles for
users to stop on. It is connected to the robotic arm via a
common telephone cable (#5, #6). Figure 5 shows the paddle
in action
One of the main feedbacks we have received from the
previous versions was that the foot paddle was limiting the
use of the system. There are many other potential disabled
readers who do not have fine control of their feet. Therefore,
we have added a joystick and chin-switches to allow our
system to be controlled in different ways.
The joy-stick (#1) was created using a modified arcade
game controller. We choose this device over other, more
common, X-Y tilters because of its durability, compact
dimensions, and simplicity to interface with a micro-
controller.
A large portion of children with multiple handicapped
choose to use this controller over the foot paddle. It is not
hidden under the table and so is easier to see and aim for.
One does not need to grab the joy stick to use it. A simple
nudge is sufficient to trigger the desired page turn.
The chin activated switches were designed for patients
whose handicap is more severe. Custom made switches were
attached underneath a piece of cloth that is then mounted on
the patient’s shoulders. This configuration allows the user to
press the switches using their chin, thus, controlling the page
turn actions. Although we did not test this controller with
patients, our own testing showed that the switches were
extremely simple to activate.
Additional switches were suggested to us as we received
more feedback in the field. Hip-activated switches and
headrest switches for extremely paralyzed persons are some
examples. Since our sensor input can interface with anything
that can act as a switch, adding more switch-based
controllers should be straightforward.
C. The Micro-Controller Unit
The whole mechanism is controlled using the GoGo Board
(#9 in Figure 4), a low-cost micro-controller robotics kit [8].
The GoGo Board has built-in motor driver circuitry and can
connect up to eight sensors. It uses Logo as the main
programming language. Logo provides a high-level control
language making the programming process faster and
simpler when compared to C used in previous iterations of
this project. The introduction of the GoGo Board led to a
significant progress over a short period of time. The only
limitation of this toolkit was that it had only four output ports.
While controlling four motors was sufficient to get our
system working, we struggled when we wanted to add more
active components. For example, adding a second blower to
fluff the pages one side at a time meant we had to design an
add-on module for the GoGo Board. Making add-on modules
has a learning-curve and was not as simple to program as the
built-in ports.
D. The Page Turn Process
When a page flip is signaled, the robotic arm presses the
fans down towards the page until the infrared sensor signals
that the arm has reached the page. The fan is then turned on
creating a vacuum that holds the page to the fan. The blower
is then turned on to fluff the pages. As the robotic arm
gradually lifts the page up, the flexible fin swipes under the
page and flips the page over. This sequence is repeated every
time a page flip is triggered. The averaged time to turn a
page is 15 seconds.
One key success of this method is to make sure the fan lies
flat on the page. If there is a gap between the fan and the
page, the vacuum strength drops significantly. Given that a
book is typically curved when placed on a flat surface,
making sure there is no gap between the fan and the page can
be challenging. The two fans used in this design were loosely
held together using rubber strips. This allowed the fans to
bend and better lie on the curved surface of a book. The joint
between the fans and the robotic arm was also spring loaded.
This provided an additional degree of freedom for the fan to
properly lie on the page.
V. RESULTS
We present our results from two experiments: lab testing
and case studies collected in the field.
100 95
91
90 85 82
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
[Large,Thick] [Large,Thin] [Small,Thick] [Small,Thin]
Figure 6. Results of the accuracy test performed on various kinds of books
A. Lab testing
We have tested the accuracy of our system with books that
were categorized by size and paper thickness. Each book
type combination was tested by performing at least 100 page
turns. We then record the number of successful page turns as
presented in Figure 6.
The book size was determined by the width from the spine
to the edge. A width larger than of an A4 paper (210 mm)
but less than of an A3 paper (297 mm) is considered large.
The smallest book size tested was of an A5 paper (148 mm).
Books with paper thickness greater than 80 grams were
categorized as “thick”.
The results showed that our system has an average
accuracy of 88.25%. It performs best on small books with
thin paper, giving an accuracy of 95%.
The performance of the system depends greatly on how
well each book is setup. The best results come from books
that have been “massaged” to ease page separation. That is,
pages of a new book are harder to separate. It is best to flip
through the book a few times and introduce small ripples on
the edges if possible. Used books like those commonly found
in libraries do not need this treatment. Placement of the book
Figure 7. Handicapped students testing the page flipping machine. Foot
paddles and a joystick were the main choices for controlling the system.
is also important. The book should allow the fan to land on
the upper corner of the page in the flipping direction. These
setup techniques are simple and can be done in a few
seconds. One can imagine this process being quickly carried
out by an assistant who takes care of which book the user
would read.
B. Field Test Case Studies
We made three visits to the Srisangwan School for
disabled children in Chiang Mai during this project. Even
though the children seem to have similar handicaps at first
glance, their requirements are actually extremely diverse. For
example, although a large number of students at the school
are on wheelchairs, they often have multiple disabilities that
further determine how much movement they can perform.
Some students have no control of their upper limbs. Turning
pages of a book is done with their mouths. Some others can
move their arms but have little control of their fingers (such
as the child in the lower image of Figure 7). Such condition
makes grabbing pages of a book difficult. Some students can
walk but has lost control of their arms (See the upper two
images in Figure 7).
The foot paddle and the joystick controller served most of
the students well. The paddle is well suited for students with
good control of their lower body while the joystick is better
for those with some control of their hands and arms.
C. Cost to Construct
Our current prototype costs approximately 4,500 Baht to
build. Half of this cost is for the Aluminum frame. This
frame can be dissembled and is easy to reconfigure making it
a good choice for building a research prototype. However,
this cost will be significantly less when using regular metal
to build a fixed frame. Initial investigation has shown that
this system can be manufactured for less than 3,000 Baht.
VI. FUTURE WORK
We believe we have developed a cost effective solution to
allow disabled readers access to normal books. The
experience we have accumulated over the three years
working on this project has shaped our thinking about what
is really important for a page turning system. The size of our
current system is fine for desktop use but it needs to provide
a slight tilt to position the book in a natural reading position.
The page turn arm and fan can still be improved to increase
accuracy and speed. Using a combination of rollers and fans
could lead to better results. Lastly, it may be useful to build
an adjustable stand for the system. This could allow one to
position the book flipper and tilt it to their comfort.
VII. CONCLUSIONS
We have presented a design for a low-cost page flipping
mechanism for disabled readers. The use of off-the-shelf
components allowed for the system to be easily constructed
and further adapted for specific needs. We have adapted our
system based on the feedback we have received from our
fieldwork experience with disabled children. This has led us
to realize the key requirements to make the system truly
useful. The current system performs well with a quick
calibration process, reaching up to 95% page turn success
rate.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
We would like to thank all our supporters that have given
us the opportunity and funding to pursue and create many
improvements to our design. Specifically, we would like to
thank the National Software Contest and IRPUS programs
for the grants that they have provided. The Srisangwan
School in Chiang Mai has been a wonderful and supporting
collaborator. Lastly, we thank the disabled children who we
have worked with. They have been as much help to us as we
have been to them.
REFERENCES
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Mechanics of Manipulation. Carnegie Mellon University Robotics
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[2] J. Young and I. Nourbakhsh, "Low Overhead Manipulation of Bound
Book Pages." Proceedings of ICRA ‘04. 2004.
[3] P. Molchak and M. Taylor, “Remote Controlled Page Turner Utilizing
a Plurality of Movable Fingers,” U.S. Patent No. 6,215,058 (issued
Apr. 10, 2001).
[4] T. Tomizawa, A. Ohya, and S. Yuta. “Motion Design of Behavior
Components in Remote Book Browsing Robot System.” Proceedings
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[5] L. Vincent, “Google Book Search: Document Understanding on a
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