Abstract of Adaptive Brain Interfaces

Adaptive Brain Interfaces (ABI) is a part of European Union Information Technology's ESPRIT programme, with the central aim of extending the capabilities of physically-impaired people to access new services and opportunities. The ABI is a portable brain-computer interface based on the analysis of electroencephalogram (EEG) signals and interface of P300 based speller.

A cap with a few integrated electrodes acquires brain signals that are pre-processed and sent to a computer for further analysis. The portable brain interface has an embedded neural network classifier that recognizes what mental task the wearer is concentrating on. It does so by analyzing continuous variations of EEG signals over several cortical areas of the brain. Each mental task is associated to a simple command. This enables people to communicate using their brain activity, as the interface only requires users to be conscious of their thoughts and to concentrate sufficiently on the mental expression of the commands required to carry out the desired task. So, by composing command sequences (thoughts), the user can read a web page, interact with games, turn on appliances, or even guide a wheelchair.

Brain interface will be most successful when it is adapted to its owner. The approach is based on a mutual learning process where the user and the ABI interface are coupled together and adapt to each other. The neural network has been specifically designed to cope with the challenging problem of recognizing mental tasks from spontaneous on-line EEG signals. Although the immediate application of ABI is to help physically disabled or impaired people by increasing their independence and facilitating access to the Information Society, the benefits of such a system are extensive. Anyone can use it for other purposes, e.g. health and safety concerns (e.g. monitoring a person's level of alertness). ABI could also contribute to the medical diagnosis of brain disorders.

Adaptive Brain Interface (ABI) is a human computer interface system that accepts voluntary commands directly from the brain to interact with the surrounding environment or to do a particular task. Sometimes it is called a direct neural interface, Brain computer interface or a brain-machine interface . It is a direct communication pathway between a brain and an external device. BCIs were aimed at assisting, augmenting or repairing human cognitive or sensory-motor functions. The approach, on which the ABI is based, as the name implies, is the adaptiveness . That means that both the system and the user adapt to each other as explained before