What is Expand?

The Expand system aims to provide a complete computing environment for people with physical disabilities. Typical computing environments require precice movement of hand muscles to use mice and keyboards. For people with limited muscle control, using a computer can be difficult or impossible. Expand solves this Human Computer Interface (HCI) issue through a single button interface combined with a customised graphical desktop system. It provides a practical and easy to use interface to emulate typical mouse and keyboard style input.

In addition to the input system, Expand includes software and hardware to allow control of a persons local environment through Infra Red and switch outputs. This gives the ability to control external devices such as lights, entertainment equipment and assistance buttons.

The main advantage of Expand over existing systems is its inexpensive, Open nature. All software is released under the GNU General Public Licence which ``guarantees your freedom to share and change free software'' — all software is available at no charge. A side-affect of this licence is access to a massive amount of free software already available through the Debian and Ubuntu projects. All hardware used in the system has also been designed to be inexpensive to obtain or construct, right down to the base computer which runs the system. Our prototype was built on a second-hand desktop PC obtained for AU$50.

There are four parts to the Expandy system:

• Uno: Gnome applet for displaying on-screen controls and generating low level mouse and keyboard events.
• IR controller: c library and Unix commands for controlling infra red devices.
• Electronic interface design details: schematic diagrams and details for building simple single button interfaces and an infra red controller.
• Icon Commands (IC): Gnome program allowing configurable commands to be generated when an icon is clicked.

Uno

    

Uno is the central part of this system, as it captures button click events and interacts with the underlying X window system to emulate mouse and keyboard events. Uno operates as a Gnome panel applet which presents a user with initial event type selection. Choosing a mouse event causes two of "cross-hairs" to scroll across the screen which are used to choose a point where the mouse even to be generated. Choosing a keyboard event presents a configurable on-screen keyboard which cycles through buttons allowing one to be "pressed".

Uno obtains the button press through the linux input subsystem (ie. /dev/input/event*) which allows use of almost any input devices such as USB mice, PS/2 keyboards and joysticks. For development, we modified a PS/2 mouse for connection to a button or a blowtube.

Parallel Port Infra Red Controler

The infra red (IR) controller consists of a library for access to a simple parallel port based transceiver and Unix commands to send and receive IR data. The electronic transceiver uses readily available inexpensive components (less than AUD$20) and is accessed through Unix commands to record IR signals and re-transmit them.

IC

Icon Commands presents a user with a window onto which graphical icons may be placed. Pressing one of these buttons causes a Unix command to be executed. This was intended to be used in conjunction with Uno and the IR controller for sending signals to devices within a users physical environment (such as an air conditioner, TV, etc.), emulating a physical remote control. It may also be used to initiate applications on the computer such as web browsers, email programs and VoIP telephone applications. Combining all functionality into this single application provides a unified method of access to common functions.

Development Status

The Expand system is currently in a "beta" state of development. If you would like to help test and provide feedback on the expand system so far, please do so with the knowledge that there may be unexpected issues.

A complete Ubuntu based install CD is available from the download page. If you already have a Linux distribution, you can obtain the Source code or pre-compiled debian packages

News

2006-02-10 — Office of Science and Innovation Project Finished

2006-02-09 — Complete Expand install CD released

2006-01-25 — Icon Commands (IC) V0.2 released

2006-01-12 — Debian packages released

2006-01-12 — Uno V0.5 released

2006-01-05 — Uno development

2005-12-13 — Expandy Initial Release