Brain-Controlled Wheelchairs: A Robotic Architecture

• Published in: IEEE Robotics and Automation Magazine (ISSN: 1070-9932), vol. 20, num. 1, p. 65-73
• Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, 2013

Independent mobility is core to being able to perform activities of daily living by oneself. However, powered wheelchairs are not an option for a large number of people who are unable to use conventional interfaces, due to severe motor–disabilities. Non-invasive brain–computer interfaces (BCIs) offer a promising solution to this interaction problem and in this article we present a shared control architecture that couples the intelligence and desires of the user with the precision of a powered wheelchair. We show how four healthy subjects are able to master control of the wheelchair using an asynchronous motor–imagery based BCI protocol and how this results in a higher overall task performance, compared with alternative synchronous P300–based approaches.

Note:

The original accepted preprint was entitiled: "The Robotic Architecture of an Asynchronous Brain–Actuated Wheelchair"

Reference

• Detailed record: https://infoscience.epfl.ch/record/181698?ln=en
• EPFL-ARTICLE-181698
• doi:10.1109/MRA.2012.2229936