Mind-Controlled Wheelchair- A Smart Innovation
Scientists at the University of Padova in Italy have proven that by using a completely non-invasive brain-machine interface technology, those who are fully paralyzed can drive a wheelchair simply by using their minds and a cap that decodes their brain waves.
Brain-machine interface technology uses electrodes to measure the electrical activity in the brain. Electrical activity in the brain can then be decoded and used to give directions to a machine. In the past, these machines have mainly been computers or robotic prosthetics, but recently scientists have considered how brain-machine interface technology could be used to control wheelchairs.
Researchers have created brain-machine interface-controlled wheelchairs in the past, but none of them have actually been applied to a clinical setting and tested on those with severe motor impairments. Due to this, Tonin et al. were interested in conducting a study where they took a brain-machine interface-controlled wheelchair and translated the technology to a clinical setting with patients suffering from severe paralysis.
The team’s objective was to prove that a brain-machine interface-controlled wheelchair could be used by paralyzed patients in real-world settings, so long as the patients and machine algorithms were properly trained through brain-machine interface skill acquisition workshops.
To achieve this goal, the team used a sensorimotor rhythm-based brain-machine interface to drive an intelligent robotic wheelchair and tested the robotic wheelchairs on three patients who were effectively paralyzed from the neck down.
A sensorimotor rhythm brain-machine interface is based on the electrical signals that are emitted from the brain when people think about moving parts of their bodies.
In this study, when the patients thought about moving both hands, the wheelchair would turn left. If they thought about moving both of their feet, the wheelchair would turn right. To move forwards, the participants would have to think of both commands at the same time.