Aijaz Hussain, a young innovator is working on a number of projects which can not only improve the medical equipments but also make them affordable for the common masses.
Focused on health based innovations, 21 years old, Aijaz from Saderbal, Srinagar, is working on an EEG (Electroencephalogram) controlled wheelchair for paralyzed patients.
While presenting the statistical data of 2021, he mentioned that among 5,00,000 disabled people, there are 1,60,000 persons suffering from physical disability and most of the people are facing difficulties in moving from one place to another.
He said that a wheelchair is the most commonly used device for movement. However the existing wheelchairs either require the help of another person to move or the user’s finger to operate the wheelchair through joystick or buttons.
He said, “My wheelchair is for fully disabled people who can’t even move their hands to operate the wheelchair. This is for the people who can only use their brain.”
The EEG controlled wheelchair made by him will work by capturing the beta waves or EEG signals from his brain which will further control the wheel chair.The use of electroencephalogram (EEG wave) based control schemes can change the shape of the lives of the disabled persons, he said.
He said, “Brain-computer interface can have a profound impact on the life of paralyzed or elderly person or people with locked-in syndrome as it offers control over various devices without any necessity of movement of the body parts. Such people can control with attention or by blink.”
Talking about the cost, he said that he is trying to develop a low cost wheelchair by using the available cheap parts and incorporating a brain-computer interface considering the affordability of people.
“If there is any wheel-chair like this, it costs almost 40 lakhs but I am reducing the costs. Using the attention level and blink, the wheelchair will cost Rs. 1,50,000 and using the EEG signals of a specific movement, it will cost Rs 4 lakh,” he said.
One of the important features in the EEG controlled wheelchair is Destination Mapping. The wheelchair develops a virtual map by taking command from a smart interface based on EEG signal as the user moves around and independently reaches desired positions.
Having done intensive research, he has consulted more than 50 papers on wheelchairs from reputed journals like IEEE, science direct etc.
“An innovator can make an innovation if he has enough knowledge of previous things. Even if a machine requires a slight modification, you should have all the information, only then you can upgrade it,” he added.
He feels that the high cost of improved medical facilities have restricted many needy and poor people to avail the benefits of such facilities. “Many upgraded medical facilities are in place but a common person can’t afford those facilities. We need to make innovations in such a way that their prices are affordable to all,” he said.
Talking about his other innovation, he is also thinking of making a shockproof and affordable pacemaker. Pacemaker is a small electronic device, implanted in a chest to help regulate heart function.
He said that a person with a pacemaker has to undergo a lot of problems. “If a person receives electrical injuries that can hamper the functioning of pacemakers and in such instances, a person can get a heart attack and can even die. My shockproof pacemaker will reduce the problems to a larger extent and also it will be affordable. Also the higher efficiency factor of the battery will be taken into consideration,” he said.
Inspired by Mostafa Chamran Save’ei, an Iranian Physicist, Aijaz was interested in electronics from childhood.
“Since childhood, I was interested in devices and would often fiddle with them. I always wanted to make devices which would create a good impact on society and benefit the people in the health sector particularly,” he said.
Perusing bachelors in Computer Application from A
