Towards natural non-invasive hand neuroprostheses for daily living

Abstract

Abstract-In this paper we show how healthy subjects can operate a non-invasive asynchronous BCI for controlling a FES neuroprosthesis and manipulate objects to carry out daily tasks in ecological conditions. Both, experienced and novel subjects proved to be able to deliver mental commands with high accuracy and speed. Our neuroprosthetic approach relies on a natural interaction paradigm, where subjects delivers congruent MI commands (i.e., they imagining a movement of the same hand they control through FES). Furthermore, we have tested our approach in a common daily task such as handwriting, which requires the user to split his/her attention to multitask between BCI control, reaching, and the primary handwriting task itself. Interestingly, the very low number of erroneous trials illustrates how during the experiments subjects were able to deliver commands just when they intended to do so. Similarly, the subjects could perform actions while delivering, or preparing to deliver, mental commands.

A hybrid BCI for enhanced control of a telepresence robot

“…One of the most significant challenges currently faced is that in addition to high accuracy in the decoding of mental commands, fast decision-making and split attention are critical [1], [2], [3]. There have been several demonstrations of such braincontrolled devices, ranging from robotic arms [4], [5], to hand orthoses [6], [7]; and from telepresence robots [1], [8], to wheelchairs [9], [10], [11]. These works predominantly take spontaneous approaches, where the subjects learn to voluntarily modulate their sensorimotor brain activity.…”

Brain-controlled telepresence robot by motor-disabled people

“…In this respect, one of the most challenging areas is neuroprosthetics, or controlling robotic and prosthetic devices directly from brain signals, where, in addition to high accuracy in the decoding of mental commands, fast decision-making is critical [1], [2]. Demonstrations of such brain-controlled robots and prostheses range from robot arms [3], [4], to hand orthosis [5], [6], to mobile robots [1], [7], and to wheelchairs [2], [8], [9], [10]. Most of these works are based on asynchronous spontaneous approaches, where the subject voluntarily modulates sensorimotor brain activity, which seems to be the most natural and suitable way to control neuroprosthetic devices.…”

Brain-machine interfaces: an overview

“…EEG-based BMIs have achieved many important milestones, such as control of a robot [72], wheelchair navigation [65], and control of hand orthosis [56,73].…”