Swiss lab’s brain-controlled wheelchair navigates around obstacles
We are familiar with the thought-controlled wheelchair from creative minds at the University of Zaragoza in Spain and also Toyota’s real-time Brainwave Control effort to help maneuver wheelchairs by thought. Based on similar EEG readings of the brain patterns to control and operate devices, researchers at the École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland have developed a wheelchair, which is ridden by the user wearing a helmet covered with electrodes to control it by thought alone. Hit the jump for a video demonstration.
This Brain Machine Interface mechanism worked out for disabled patients and patients recovering from stroke, deploys some artificial intelligence, which accounts to a shared control of the wheelchair. Thus, they have a brain-controlled wheelchair readied which uses a pair of cameras positioned on the sides of the chair to detect and distinguish between obstacles and then using an image processing software is also able to avoid them.
