Brain Controlled Wheelchair

A team of researchers led by Professor José del R. Millán at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL), Lausanne, Switzerland has developed a wheelchair that can be controlled via a Brain-Computer Interface. The focus of their research is on the direct use of human brain signals to control devices and interact with the environment. They are involved in a large set of complementary projects, which balance the development of prototypes —where robust real-time operation is critical— and the exploration of new principles.

Here we see a subject testing out navigating the environment in a wheelchair by thought alone. The subject thinks of either moving their right or left arm to generate left or right movement. What is interesting is that in order to perform a particular task one doesn't have to think about that task, instead they can think about whatever is associated with that task. Essentially the computer can be trained to interpret whatever thought a subject wants to correlate with a desired outcome. Nifty!

The world's first ever Immersive Technology Summit will be held at the Los Angeles Center Studios (LACS) on October 21st, 2010.

This video is copyrighted by Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne: cnbi.epfl.ch

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