Scenario Screen: A Dynamic and Context Dependent P300 Stimulator Screen Aimed at Wheelchair Navigation Control

Cross-Platform Implementation of an SSVEP-Based BCI for the Control of a 6-DOF Robotic Arm

Robotics has been successfully applied in the design of collaborative robots for assistance to people with motor disabilities. However, man-machine interaction is difficult for those who suffer severe motor disabilities. The aim of this study was to test the feasibility of a low-cost robotic arm control system with an EEG-based brain-computer interface (BCI). The BCI system relays on the Steady State Visually Evoked Potentials (SSVEP) paradigm. A cross-platform application was obtained in C++. This C++ platform, together with the open-source software Openvibe was used to control a Stäubli robot arm model TX60. Communication between Openvibe and the robot was carried out through the Virtual Reality Peripheral Network (VRPN) protocol. EEG signals were acquired with the 8-channel Enobio amplifier from Neuroelectrics. For the processing of the EEG signals, Common Spatial Pattern (CSP) filters and a Linear Discriminant Analysis classifier (LDA) were used. Five healthy subjects tried the BCI. This work allowed the communication and integration of a well-known BCI development platform such as Openvibe with the specific control software of a robot arm such as Stäubli TX60 using the VRPN protocol. It can be concluded from this study that it is possible to control the robotic arm with an SSVEP-based BCI with a reduced number of dry electrodes to facilitate the use of the system.

30+ years of P300 brain-computer interfaces

Brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) directly measure brain activity with no physical movement and translate the neural signals into messages. BCIs that employ the P300 event-related brain potential often have used the visual modality. The end user is presented with flashing stimuli that indicate selections for communication, control, or both. Counting each flash that corresponds to a specific target selection while ignoring other flashes will elicit P300s to only the target selection. P300 BCIs also have been implemented using auditory or tactile stimuli. P300 BCIs have been used with a variety of applications for severely disabled end users in their homes without frequent expert support. P300 BCI research and development has made substantial progress, but challenges remain before these tools can become practical devices for impaired patients and perhaps healthy people.

A Bayesian Shared Control Approach for Wheelchair Robot With Brain Machine Interface

To enhance the performance of the brain-actuated robot system, a novel shared controller based on Bayesian approach is proposed for intelligently combining robot automatic control and brain-actuated control, which takes into account the uncertainty of robot perception, action and human control. Based on maximum a posteriori probability (MAP), this method establishes the probabilistic models of human and robot control commands to realize the optimal control of a brain-actuated shared control system. Application on an intelligent Bayesian shared control system based on steady-state visual evoked potential (SSVEP)-based brain machine interface (BMI) is presented for all-time continuous wheelchair navigation task. Moreover, to obtain more accurate brain control commands for shared controller and adapt the proposed system to the uncertainty of electroencephalogram (EEG), a hierarchical brain control mechanism with feedback rule is designed. Experiments have been conducted to verify the proposed system in several scenarios. Eleven subjects participated in our experiments and the results illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.