The Swiss Join the Mind-Powered Wheelchair Hunt

Tweet

You’ve got to hand it to science in general on this one–there have been a lot of advancements in wheelchair control. But one of the newest comes out of the EPFL Neuroprosthetics Center in Switzerland: a wheelchair that gets its rolling orders directly from the brain.

It’s a fairly simple concept, even if the execution is anything but: the chair’s operator (as pictured above) is outfitted with a cap that allows his thoughts to be read and recorded by an EEG (electroencephalograph) system. Then, the resulting records are translated to computer data which is, in turn, retransmitted as commands the chair can interpret.

Basically, should the operator want to turn left, he (or she, depending) thinks about moving his left arm, and the chair converts that into language the chair interprets as “turn to the left”.

Some artificial intelligence is added, though, to note things like obstacles and their avoidance–if the chair is rolling toward a cabinet, does it need to avoid it, or is the user trying to reach it is one of the biggest examples–but still, the process is under way and will hopefully yield marketable results soon.