Development of an emergency call system using a brain computer interface (BCI)

A brain computer interface (BCI) can be used by persons with severe neuromuscular disorders to control external devices such as computers or neuro-prosthesis. To improve accuracy, however, most of BCIs need multi-channels, wet sensors, big and complex systems. It makes most use of BCIs restricted to laboratory and medical area. In this paper, to solve the limitation, mindset (neurosky headset) that is a commercially available BCI is adopted and the emergency call system for severely disabled persons using attention/meditation signal is developed. In addition, to operate on a wide range of disabilities under a wide range of environmental conditions, algorithms of determining trigger method and threshold level are proposed. The usefulness of the system and the proposed algorithms is verified by experiment result.