Involving graduating engineers in applying a commercial brain-computer interface to motorized wheelchair driving

Abstract

Engineering students have a natural strong desire to see how their laboriously acquired knowledge has effective application in real life. A small group of students were involved to apply their knowledge of computer science, electronics, and electrical engineering to something unusual and with a social impact: driving a wheelchair by using brain-computer interfaces. Today's development of these interfaces are not yet so advanced to be effectively used in health devices and must be considered very carefully. This led to a pilot experiment that kept all the charm of the original goal, but would have no drawbacks if something should go wrong: moving a small cart, based on Arduino boards, interfaced with a normal laptop to a commercial and affordable brainwave sensing headset. Being the driver not onboard, a Bluetooth connection has been used to send commands to the cart. Results are twofold. The cart actually moved where requested, and this is even more noticeable after considering that the people involved had limited time training and had no reduced mobility, which means less psychological involvement, otherwise recognized as an important factor of success. The group manifested a strong interest in every part of the project, giving them awareness of their actual skills and their actual ability to autonomously acquire new skills as needed. This study is the outcome of the International Telematic University Uninettuno and Helwan University (Cairo, Egypt) in a four year long cooperation for a double degree (one recognized in Italy and all Europe and the other in Egypt). The students involved had completed all the exams and were going to graduate. This project was devised for one of their MS thesis.