Assistive Context-Aware Toolkit (ACAT)

ACAT is an open source platform created at Intel Labs. It is designed to enhance communication for individuals with restricted speech and typing capabilities. ACAT achieves this by providing functionalities like keyboard simulation, word and sentence prediction, and speech synthesis.

ACAT was originally developed for Professor Stephen Hawking who was instrumental to the project design and validation. After deploying the system to Professor Hawking, Intel turned its attention to the larger community and continued to make ACAT more configurable to support a larger set of users.

The team aims to foster external developer engagement and ongoing enhancement of this adaptable platform by making it open source. Developers are encouraged to expand its capabilities through the addition of new user interfaces, sensing modalities, enhanced language prediction, and other features.

Key Features

• Switch-scanning interface for augmented and alternative communication (AAC)
• Range of input modalities to support varying user physiological constraints​
• Enhanced language models that are specifically fine-tuned for AAC with word and sentence predictions to improve typing efficiency and provide a personalized user experience
• Multiple typing modes for faster communication
• Extensible platform for engaging the developer community​

The latest release of ACAT version 3.0 (communication interface only) includes:

• Brain Computer Interface (BCI) input modality that aims to bridge the communication gap for locked-in users. The sensing is based on non-invasive, relatively low-cost OPENBCI EEG kit.