title: A telepresence robotic system operated with a P300-based brain-computer interface: initial tests with ALS patients.
abstract: Brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) open a new valuable communication channel for people with severe neurological or motor degenerative diseases, such as ALS patients. On the other hand, the ability to teleoperate robots in a remote scenario provides a physical entity embodied in a real environment ready to perceive, explore, and interact. The combination of both functionalities provides a system with benefits for ALS patients in the context of neurorehabilitation or maintainment of the neural activity. This paper reports a BCI telepresence system which offers navigation, exploration and bidirectional communication, only controlled by brain activity; and an initial study of applicability with ALS patients. The results show the feasibility of this technology in real patients.
authors.affiliation: Instituto de Investigación en Ingeniería de Aragón (I3A) and Dpto. de Informática e Ingeniería de Sistemas (DIIS), Universidad de Zaragoza, Spain. cescolan@unizar.es
authors.forename: Carlos
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Escolano
authors.forename: Ander
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Ramos Murguialday
authors.forename: Tamara
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Matuz
authors.forename: Niels
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Birbaumer
authors.forename: Javier
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Minguez
mesh_terms: D000690:Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis / Q000534:rehabilitation*; D003143:Communication Devices for People with Disabilities; D016287:Computer Peripherals; D004569:Electroencephalography / Q000379:methods*; D004867:Equipment Design; D019544:Equipment Failure Analysis; D018913:Event-Related Potentials, P300; D006801:Humans; D008875:Middle Aged; D010865:Pilot Projects; D012371:Robotics / Q000295:instrumentation*; D013813:Therapy, Computer-Assisted / Q000295:instrumentation*; D014584:User-Computer Interface