Design Of EEG Based Brain Computer Interface

With advances in modern technology, Brain Computer Interface (BCI) has beendeveloped which has the potential to provide the locked in patient to communicatewith outside world. Though present day BCI suffer from slow communication rate onthe order of 10-25 bits per min but still BCI are blessing to people who arecompletely paralyzed, or "lock in", with basic communication capability so that theycan express their wishes to care giver, or neuroprostheses.Different methods anddifferent brain signals are used for the different BCI. This dissertation presents designof a simple BCI that used Alpha ware of the EEG signal and its performance wasobserved in normal environment.Earlier research has shown that increase in the amplitude of Alpha component of EEGspectrum occur when people close their eye for more than 1 second and this is true foralmost 90% of the adult population. This fact is utilized to generate a control signalwhich ultimately controls the electrical appliances.Several experiments done in normal environment to operate the basic function ofTelivision (TV) are presented and compared. The performance of the subjects whenactivating and controlling the TV was encouraging. During the experiment subjectwere able to select select the different functions of TV with maximum single error.Bysuccessfully realizing the real time control of outer device, it is proved that the alphawave based BCI is feasible and has great potential application value. With furtherdevelopment of integrated and portable system, this Alpha wave based BCI systemcould provide those locked-in patients a faster and reliable switching system in orderto control electrical devices.