AAC@IITM¶

Alternative and Augmentative Communication (AAC) is our effort to provide non-verbal individuals the ability to independently express their ideas. The platform being used is the BeagleBoard, revC. The final hardware will have

1. Minimum 3-hr battery backup
2. Software that works with a single-click
3. Access is through two buttons, which can be programmed either as left-click or left and right clicks

Current Urgent Problems¶

1. Need espeak and wxpythons package for the Angstrom distribution
2. Need a minimal ubuntu distribution (defined package list)
   1. with a kernel that recognizes keyboard input on GPIO
   2. scripts to ground two GPIO pins
3. Need to understand amixer, and independently control two audio channels

Open Problems¶

1. Incorporate prediction into Hope (see e.g. Dasher)
2. Local language version of Hope
3. Need to finalize TTS, many possible solutions
   1. Male voice exists. Need female voice compiled for flite using festivox http://www.speech.cs.cmu.edu/flite/doc/flite_toc.html
   2. flite_hts_engine has only female voice
   3. espeak needs Indian languages
4. Improvements to I-Draw
5. Mouse-like interface by dividing up the screen into sections and zooming
6. Software to teach mathematics
7. Scroll type access to other programs like audio/video players, openoffice, etc