Assisting Telemanipulation Operators via Real-Time Brain Reading

Abstract :

In this paper, we present a concept for a new kind of man-machine interface that is based on the monitoring of brain activity and aimed at supporting operators in telemanipulation scenarios. Monitoring takes place unnoticed by the subject and is called brain reading. A brain reading interface (BRI) is a highly integrated control environment that observes the brain signals in real time. Consciously recognized and classified stimuli evoke a certain response in the operator`s brain activity that will be detected by the BRI. Based on the detection of these changes in brain responses in the electroencephalogram (EEG), a brain reading system is able to discern whether a piece of information that has been presented to the operator was acknowledged or not. Hence, the BRI ensures that environmental alerts are processed and classified by the operator. Thus, BRIs can be a crucial component of control systems ensuring that operators perceive and cognitively process alerts presented to them during highly demanding tasks, like complex manipulations. We show that brain activity changes that correlate with the classification of important, task-relevant stimuli in multi-task telemanipulationlike scenarios are stable. Furthermore, we will outline a concept for a BR system that allows the detection of these brain activity changes in single trial EEG epochs based on machine-learning methods.

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