Evaluation of the Remote-controlled Drone System using an Eye-tracking device through the Internet for patients in bedridden conditions

In many countries, the rate of aging in their population is rapidly increasing. It is expected that this increasing trend influences the number of patients in bedridden states who have difficulty moving their extremities, such as those patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). The patients are limited in many aspects of their daily lives; this includes not seeing what is outside of their rooms, affecting their quality of life (QOL). Thus, this study aims to evaluate the Remote-controlled Drone System using the Eye-tracking device through the Internet (RDSEI) to improve QOL for patients in bedridden conditions. The novel RDSEI is proposed and developed by the Kai laboratory. The RDSEI consists of a drone, a transmitter, a control screen, an eye-tracking device, a video capture device, a server computer, and a client computer. The subjects of this experimental evaluation of the RDSEI were five healthy male adults (average age: 20.6 years old). Experimental results indicated that all the subjects could control the drone easily by using this system, although there were delays, blurriness, and freezing of the video. Therefore, it was concluded that by using this system, the subjects could control the drone by only their eye movements, thereby enabling them to see the outside world through the drone's camera. In the future, the patients will be able to control the RDSEI from remote locations and converse with persons in remote locations.