Development of Facial Wearable Robot for Supporting Eye Blink

Facial paralysis is the loss of voluntary muscle movement on one or both sides of the face inhibits the movement of orbicularis oculus. People with facial paralysis cannot blink which triggers dry eye and it affects the lives of many people. We propose a novel approach for supporting blinking with facial wearable robotic technology. This robot has a novel eyelid gating support mechanism using deformation of elastomer for recreating eye blink, triggered by blink detection on healthy side. We evaluated this system with a healthy participant and indicated the feasibility of eye blink support for people with facial paralysis.