Category: BCI

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Assistive Technologies BCI

Israeli Make-a-thon empowers the disabled

TOM – Tikkun Olam Make-a-thon, is underway in Nazareth, Israel.  In this Arab city, the hometown of Jesus, in an industrial complex built by Israeli Stef Wertheimer, makers, brain researchers, designers and physical therapists are empowering the disabled. Participants have 72 hours to build open source, affordable, working prototypes of devices and apparatus to improve their lives.  “Tikkun Olam,” or “Repairing the World”, is a Jewish principle, and the guiding theme of TOM.

Projects include:

  •  A 3D printed hand that enables a child born with out one to hold a ball
  •  “Eye writer” glasses that control a computer
  •  Crutches that convert to a walker
  •  A pressure relieving method for wheelchairs
  •  A device that cleans wheelchairs when entering a house
  •  A headpiece with sensory abilities for the blind
  •  A printed shoe for an injured veteran
  •  A brain controlled a prosthetic arm

Participants include Sefi Udi, maker, engineer, designer, and quadriplegic, and Professor Nathan Intrator, whose non-invasive brain computer interface will allow Sefi to control a prosthetic arm with his mind.

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Assistive Technologies BCI Brain

Quadriplegic moves hand with thoughts

Neurobridge, developed by Ohio State University and Battelle, enabled a paralyzed man to move his hand and fingers with his thoughts.

The  device is an electronic neural bypass for spinal cord injuries that reconnects the brain directly to muscles, allowing voluntary and functional control of a paralyzed limb.

The experiment used a chip, implanted in the patient’s brain, that created algorithms to map the signals sent when he concentrated on moving his hand.

When the chip was connected to a computer, the signals were translated into messages sent to a sleeve loaded with electrodes placed around his arm. This stimulated his muscles, allowing him to move his hand by focusing on it.

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Assistive Technologies BCI Robotics

“Brain controlled” exoskeleton boosts limb power

“Hybrid Assistive Limb” or “HAL” is an exoskeleton by Cyberdyne that detects electrical pulses on the skin when one’s brain sends a “move” message to a limb.  The robotic suit recognizes the intended motion, and then moves “naturally” with the arm or leg, providing additional power.

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BCI

Paraplegic controls exoskeleton with mind, kicks off World Cup

As ApplySci predicted in January, Julian Pinto, a paraplegic, successfully kicked off the World Cup in Brazil this week.

Pinto was aided by a mind-controlled exoskeleton created by Duke Professor Miguel Nicolelis and a team of 150 researchers involved in the Walk Again Project.

They named the device the BRA-Santos Dumont, a combination of the three-letter sporting code for Brazil and Alberto Santos-Dumont, a Brazilian aviator who demonstrated controllable flight was possible by flying his dirigible around the Eiffel Tower.

The robotics work was led by Professor Gordon Cheng at the Technische Universitat Munchen, and French researchers built the exoskeleton. Nicolelis’s team focused on ways to read people’s brain waves, and use those signals to control robotic limbs.

To operate the device, the wearer moves his legs by thinking about it. Sensors inside a cap on the wearer’s head transfer the neuronal information and send it to a computer inside the exoskeleton’s backpack. This information is then sent to the legs of the exoskeleton, which move via hydraulic drivers.

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BCI Brain Robotics

“Neurotic Robots” mimic human brain function

UC Irvine professor Jeff Krichmar and colleagues are experimenting with robotic awareness and trying to teach mechanical brains to behave more like human and animal brains by programming traits that mimic obsessive-compulsive disorder or a fear of open spaces.

Professor Krichmar presented his research this week at the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation in Hong Kong.

The team studied the actions of serotonin and dopamine in mice as they solved a maze or reacted to an unfamiliar environment.   The scientists then mimicked the actions of the brain chemicals by translating them into equations in the robots’ cognitive software.

Teaching a robot to feel fear or anxiousness could contribute to its ability to adapt to changing conditions and instill in it a sense of self-preservation.  For example, a search-and-rescue robot could analyze weather conditions before attempting a mission.

Krichmar has already developed a robot named Carl’s Junior  that responds to verbal commands and other external signals. It is used as a therapeutic tool for children on the autism spectrum who are less comfortable interacting with humans than they are with inanimate,  but responsive, objects.

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BCI Brain EEG

Brainflight project for BCI enabled flying

Professor Florian Holzapfel and colleagues at the Institute of Flight System Dynamics of the Technische Universität München have demonstrated the feasibility of flying via brain control.

Brainwaves of the pilots are measured with EEG electrodes connected to a cap.  An algorithm developed by Team PhyPa at the Berlin Institute of Technology deciphers electrical potentials and converts them into control commands.  Only very clearly defined electrical brain impulses required for  are recognized by the brain-computer interface.

Called Brainflight, the EU-funded project aims to prove that brain-controlled flight is possible and that pilots with little or no experience can use a BCI to fly.  Some of the pilots were able to land the plane, in a simulator, under conditions of poor visibility using their thoughts.

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BCI Brain Prosthetics

“Brain modeled” chip with prosthetic potential

Neurogrid is a “human brain based” microchip that is 9,000 times faster than and requires 1/40,000 the power of a typical pc.  It is being developed by Professor Kwabena Boahen at Stanford University.

The circuit board consists of 16 custom-designed “Neurocore” chips which can simulate 1 million neurons and billions of synaptic connections. Certain synapses were enabled to share hardware circuits, saving power.

Its speed and low power character could impact the development of prosthetic limbs that are controlled by a similar chip and not tethered to a power source.  Such a limb could have “the speed and complexity of our own actions” according to Professor Boahen.

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BCI Brain

Epidural stimulation enables paraplegic voluntary movement

University of Louisville researcher Claudia Angeli‘s  recent paper details the process of electrical stimulation of the spinal cord enabling paralyzed patients to intentionally move their knees, ankles, and toes.

The stimulation therapy involves implanting a 16-electrode array in the epidural space next to the outermost protective layer of the spinal cord. The array is connected to a pulse generator resembling a pacemaker that’s implanted nearby. The pulse generator is controlled wirelessly by a programming device outside the body.

The array delivers electrical pulses to the spinal cord below the site of the injury, awakening the connections of that circuitry and getting it to function again. With the stimulation turned on, the four paralyzed men in the study were able to make voluntary leg, ankle, and toe movements on command.

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BCI Prosthetics

BCI and robotic prosthetic paralympic competition

Switzerland will host the world’s first Cybathlon, an Olympic-style competition for parathletes using robotic assistive devices and brain computer interfaces.

It will include six events: a bike race, leg race, wheelchair race, exoskeleton race, arm prosthetic race (including electrical muscle stimulation), and a Brain Computer Interface race for competitors with full paralysis.

Unlike the Olympics, where athletes can use prosthetics to make themselves only as good as able-bodied athletes, Cybathlon competitors are encouraged to use the best technology. Prizes will be awarded both to the athlete and to the company that created the prosthetic, device or software.  The assistive devices can include commercially available products provided by companies and prototypes developed by research labs.

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BCI Brain

fNIRS headband measures boredom, fatigue, focus in air traffic control simulation

Tufts paper | Boston Globe

Tufts professors Robert Jacob and Sergio Fantini are developing an fNIRS based headband to read brain activity, enabling a computer to determine whether the wearer is bored, fatigued, or sharp.  They recently tested the method in an air traffic control simulation.

With functional near infrared spectroscopy, a row of lights embedded in the headband beams light waves through the skull and onto the prefrontal cortex of the brain.  A computer connected to the headband can gauge the person’s level of mental exertion by measuring the amount of light absorbed by the brain.

ApplySci questions the safety of continuous infrared spectroscopy, and looks forward to less invasive methods of monitoring focus in air traffic controllers, pilots, and other attention-critical roles.

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BCI Brain Monitoring Seniors Sensors Wearables

Facial expression controlled ear computer/health monitor

AFP | Japan Times

Kazuhiro Taniguchi of Hiroshima City University has developed a 17 gram “Earclip-type Wearable PC”  equipped with a GPS, compass, gyrosensor, battery, barometer, speaker and microphone.  A microchip and data storage enable users to load software.   The device is being tested now, with promising applications for the elderly and disabled.

The system can be connected to a smartphone and allow the user to navigate through software programs using facial expressions, such as a raised eyebrow, a stuck-out tongue, a wiggle of the nose or by clenching teeth.

The device uses infrared sensors that monitor tiny movements in the ear, which differ depending on how the eyes and mouth move. Because the user does not have to move either hand, its developers say it can serve as “a third hand” caregivers, rock-climbers, motorcyclists, astronauts, and people with disabilities.

The earpiece could also function as a hearing aid,  and could monitor the wearer’s health, including pulse and body temperature, while logging how often they eat and sneeze.  An accelerometer could tell when the user falls and instruct the smartphone to notify relatives, or call an ambulance based on GPS data.

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BCI Eyes Wearables

Lumus/EyeSight partnership to rival Google Glass

In an effort to compete with Google Glass, gesture control company EyeSight Mobile has partnered with smart glass company Lumus. The combination allows one to browse Facebook, play games, or control navigation instructions shown in a head-up display by holding out a finger to tap on icons or swipe away notifications.  EyeSight plans to add the ability to drag items around the display.

The Lumus glasses mount a transparent 640×480 display onto the lens of the battery-powered, head-tracking glasses.  The wearer can see information overlaid on top, and the glasses change what’s shown according to the wearer’s orientation.  The glasses have a camera, an OMAP 4 processor, and Android 4.1.2, to run EyeSight’s gesture recognition software, which recognizes fingers and hands even against a cluttered or moving backdrop.