Wearable and Wireless Brain-Computer Interface and Its Applications

Abstract

This study extends our previous work on mobile & wireless EEG acquisition to a truly wearable and wireless human-machine interface, NCTU Brain-Computer-Interface-headband,(BCI-headband), featuring: (1) dry Micro-Electro-Mechanical System (MEMS) EEG electrodes with 400 ganged contacts for acquiring signals from non-hairy sites without use Of gel or skin preparation; (2) a miniature data acquisition circuitry, (3) wireless telemetry and (4) online signal processing on a commercially available cell phone or a lightweight, wearable digital signal processing module. The applicability of the NCTU BCI headband to EEG monitoring in real-world environments was demonstrated in a sample study: cognitive-state monitoring and management of participants performing normal tasks.