Rehabilitations tool for seriously physically handicapped persons including multiplexed servo mechanisms

摘要

Rehabilitation apparatus controllable by a seriously physically handicapped person comprises an input switch actuable by that person with a mechanical, pneumatic, or acoustic activity, to operate a pulse generator during the period of actuation of the switch. The pulse generator operates a selector in stepped manner, and the selector outputs are each applied to a respective logic gate which operates to activate a respective servo device only when the relevant selector output is extant and the input switch actuation is terminated. The control activity required from the handicapped person to selectively activate any one of a plurality of servo devices is accordingly reduced to an effective minimum. For larger numbers of servo devices, selection matrix techniques are employed with two or more selectors which can be stepped by sequential actuation of a single input switch, or by respective input switches, dependent on the capability of the handicapped person. Indications are provided to denote when respective servo devices are selectable during the stepping, and resetting of the selectors is automatic after each servo selection.