HCI International 2011

T18: Brain-Computer Interface

Half Day Tutorial

Günter Edlinger (short bio)
g.tec Guger Technologies OG, Austria

Christoph Guger (short bio)
g.tec Guger Technologies OG, Austria

Objectives

The goal is to bring together researcher and interested audience in the field of Brain-Computer interfaces to introduce and discuss the current state of the art in Neural Machine Interface. In a practical part people can experience major BCI approaches.

Content and benefits

The direct connection between the human brain and a computer, a so-called Brain-Computer Interface (BCI), is what research groups all over the world are working on feverishly and successfully. A brain-computer interface translates brain waves into control signals. BCIs have been developed during the last years for people with severe disabilities to improve their quality of life. Applications of BCI systems comprise the restoration of movements, communication and environmental control. However, recently BCI applications have been also used in different research areas e.g. in the field of virtual reality.
This workshop will demonstrate major concepts for BCI control:

1. motor imagery for cursor control,
2. P300 for spelling and smart home control and
3. SSVEP for robot control.

This allows the audience to see all required hardware and software, the typical training and classifier setup and the achievable accuracies. We will invite people from the auditorium to participate in this live demonstrations.

Content:

• definition of a brain computer interface
• the EEG, non-invasive recording of brain activity
• invasive recordings with ECoG
• assets and drawbacks of EEG-based BCI
• BCI approaches: the slow cortical potentials
• BCI approaches: oscillatory activity, alpha-, mu- and beta rhythms
• BCI approaches: steady-state evoked potentials
• BCI approaches: the P-300 approach
• limits of speed and accuracy with EEG-based BCI applications
• introduction to required hard- and software
• practical introduction: electrode montage, EEG recording
• life BCI-experiment with volunteer subject(s)
• videos: examples of BCI applications, controlling Twitter, socialize in Second Live, smart home control, BCI in VR

Target audience

People interested in learning the new skill of BCI communication, people working in the area of human-computer interaction, neuro-rehabilitation, working with handicapped people, innovative human computer interaction, people interested in combining BCI technology in their field of expertise.

Relevant links:

BCI related material
BCI related Videos

Brief Biographical sketches

Günter Edlinger, PhD is co-founder of Guger Technologies and has more than 17 years experience in the field of biomedical signal acquisition and processing. He worked for 8 years as a research assistant and assistant professor at the University of Technology Graz at the Institute for Biomedical Engineering. He did his PhD in the field of multi-channel High-Resolution EEG including inverse problems based on experiments from movement execution and motor imagery. Since 1999 he is working for Guger Technologies and is also co-founder of g.tec medical engineering GmbH in 2004. He is responsible for research and development at g.tec for the medical devices.

Christoph Guger, PhD is co-founder of Guger Technologies OEG where he works since 1999. He carried out research work at the Department of Medical Informatics Graz for 4 years and received his PhD degree in 1999. for designing an EEG-based brain-computer interface. Research interests are invasive and non-invasive brain-computer interfaces, high-altitude medicine, sports medicine and monitoring of neonates. He is also co-founder of g.tec medical engineering GmbH.