Hello everyone, It’s Xander!!!. I was able to develop a Brain controlled assistive feeding robot system called Zeroeth BCI. This system consists of a one Degree of Freedom (DOF) and three DOF manipulator which are a spoon arm and a gripper arm respectively. These arms are controlled using a Brain-Computer Interface (BCI) pipeline. This solo project involves interfacing the OpenBCI 4-channel Ganglion Biosensing Board with an Arduino uno R3 to enable thought-controlled feeding motions with the twin manipulators.
For simplicity of use, this system’s control is actuated via the focus widget in the OpenBCI GUI. When the cognitive state of the user is at concentrating – biosensed with electrodes connected at FP1 and FP2 of the scalp- the manipulators are actuated and perform the preplanned feeding motion and feed the user. The chosen food supplement for this project is the Nigerian Snack “Puff-Puff”.
A simple Circuit Tethering of the System
The use of BCI devices is novel in Africa, specifically Nigeria. This project satisfies the feeding needs of any user inflicted with upper limb disabilities and even locked in states. It can further be optimized for other self help use cases for people living with various disabilities and even in a brain controlled smart house. The user’s independence is greatly increased. This project showcases the capability of OpenBCI technology to facilitate inventive and easily navigable robotics applications and interfaces with little difficulties in its usage and implementation . It not only demonstrates the potential of OpenBCI by using brain waves to drive a modular robot, but it also opens up new possibilities for human-robot interaction, advances robotics, BCI generated art & entertainment and neuroscience/neurotechnology at large. Special Thanks to the OpenBCI team for the opportunity to be part of this journey.
For any questions, contributions, suggestions or tips, Feel free to contact me at [email protected].
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.