Device driver system for minimizing adverse tremor effects during use of pointing devices

摘要

A system and method for minimizing essential tremor effects while utilizing a pointing device on a computer system is disclosed. The system and method comprises obtaining an individual's tremor characteristics and calculating the frequency components of the tremor to obtain digital filter coefficients. The method and system further includes creating a calibration profile comprised of digital filter coefficient that plugs into a pointing device driver; and utilizing the modified device driver to eliminate the effects of the essential tremors. The system and method includes a software tuning algorithm used to obtain an individual's tremor characteristics. A spectral analysis system will calculate the frequency components of the tremor and digital filter coefficients will be saved as a profile. The appropriate filter coefficients will be passed to a device driver via the profile. The modified device driver will filter the pointing device input data based on the filter coefficients and eliminate tremor effects from the on-screen pointer. Because the profile is transferable, if a device driver capable of accepting the profile plug-in were already installed on a computer, the profile could be loaded and used immediately on the computer without the need for re-calibration.