An SSVEP based BCI to control a humanoid robot by using portable EEG device

Brain Computer Interfaces (BCIs) are systems that allow human subjects to interact with the environment by interpreting brain signals into machine commands. This work provides a design for a BCI to control a humanoid robot by using signals obtained from the Emotiv EPOC [11], a portable electroencephalogram (EEG) device with 14 electrodes and sampling rate of 128 Hz. The main objective is to process the neuroelectric responses to an externally driven stimulus and generate control signals for the humanoid robot Nao accordingly. We analyze steady-state visually evoked potential (SSVEP) induced by one of four groups of light emitting diodes (LED) by using two distinct signals obtained from the two channels of the EEG device which reside on top of the occipital lobe. An embedded system is designed for generating pulse width modulated square wave signals in order to flicker each group of LEDs with different frequencies. The subject chooses the direction by looking at one of these groups of LEDs that represent four directions. Fast Fourier Transform and a Gaussian model are used to detect the dominant frequency component by utilizing harmonics and neighbor frequencies. Then, a control signal is sent to the robot in order to draw a fixed sized line in that selected direction by BCI. Experimental results display satisfactory performance where the correct target is detected 75% of the time on the average across all test subjects without any training.