The Combination of Foot Switch and Low-Cost IMU for a Wearable Mouse in Human-computer Interaction

A wearable mouse using upper arm movement/gesture is a promising pointing device that can be used by people with lower-arm disablement due to accident or prenatal disablement. The movement of the upper arm could be used to substitute the cursor movement. The use of an inertial measurement system is one way to capture the arm’s movement in 3 dimensional spaces. The purposes of this study are the development of a new wearable mouse using the nine degree-of-freedom of inertial measurement unit and a foot switch for clicking action; and the evaluation of its performance on a specified level of difficulties. The device was evaluated by comparing the proposed device and a standard mouse. The performance indicators were throughput, movement time, comfort, and fatigue, based on Fitts’ Law formula. The important finding is a significant (p < 0.01) difference in throughput between each level of difficulty in the proposed device by means of the target’s distances and diameter/width in graphical user input design. The other finding showed no neck fatigue related differences between the proposed device and a mouse.