Towards Independence: A BCI Telepresence Robot for People with Severe Motor Disabilities

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  • Published in: Proceedings of the IEEE, vol. 103, num. 6, p. 969-982
  • Piscataway: Ieee-Inst Electrical Electronics Engineers Inc, 2015

This paper presents an important step forward towards increasing the independence of people with severe motor disabilities, by using brain-computer interfaces (BCI) to harness the power of the Internet of Things. We analyze the stability of brain signals as end-users with motor disabilities progress from performing simple standard on-screen training tasks to interacting with real devices in the real world. Furthermore, we demonstrate how the concept of shared control —which interprets the user’s commands in context— empowers users to perform rather complex tasks without a high workload. We present the results of nine end-users with motor disabilities who were able to complete navigation tasks with a telepresence robot successfully in a remote environment (in some cases in a different country) that they had never previously visited. Moreover, these end-users achieved similar levels of performance to a control group of ten healthy users who were already familiar with the environment.

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