Group: Felix Anderson and Saman Tehrani

Description:

So we will be doing research on EEG signals, in which we can get these signals using EMOTIV devices to understand more about brain-computer interface(BCI), which is a connection between the brain and a computer device. Our goal is to see if robots can obtain human performance through these devices. EEG is the recording of electrical signals along the scalp that measures voltage fluctuations within the neurons of the brain within a short period of time. The source of EEG activity is the electrical charge maintained in the billions of neurons and identify oscillatory activity in the brain. The EMOTIV devices we plan researching is the EPOC/EPOC+. The EPOC/EPOC+ comes with 9 axis inertial motion sensors, which will help with our research on EEG signals. It can conduct facial expressions, performance and emotional metrics, and mental commands. Another EMOTIV device we plan on researching for use is the EMOTIV Insight. This 5-channel headset can record brainwaves and translate them into meaningful data we can understand. With both of these devices we can understand more about performance, mental commands, and facial expressions and use that for our research to map EEG signals to a robot interface, in which we will use a moving hand by using brain commands and signals. Having the electrical signals of brain fetched from EMOTIV device, we can start analyzing them and translating them into an understandable format and language for robots and computers. Mapping the inputs to computer understandable output for a robot, we will try to control a robotic interface with only human brain and not using any other sensors. In future, this research might lead to findings with which we would be able to remove the mapping phase and translation phase. This means that, we could control a robotic interface with raw and non-manipulated inputs of human brain. In case we are not able of purchasing this device to have our own brain recordings, we should think of using freely available EEG brain samples to advance our research.

EMOTIV Insight. This 5-channel headset can record brainwaves and translate them into meaningful data.

This is the EPOC/EPOC+. It comes with 9 axis inertial motion sensors. It can conduct facial expressions, performance and emotional metrics, and mental commands.

Here is a small drawing of the diagram of our research.