Controlling a Robot With the Emotiv EEG Headset

robotsrule writes "This video shows a WowWee Rovio mobile spy robot being piloted remotely over a Skype video call using thought, facial gestures, and head movements, with the help of the Emotiv Systems EPOC 14-electrode EEG headset with built-in gyroscope. An accompanying article explains in detail how the system works and what steps were taken with the Emotiv systems SDK to interface with the EPOC headset along with code samples. The system is based on Robodance 5, a free robot control program for consumer robot owners that will be out in beta on May 20, 2010."

Innovation times...

[vikingpower]

...are here again. Yee haw !

Blah blah blah

[BadAnalogyGuy]

*insert bland comment about applicability to military purposes here*
*insert stupid comment about applicability to porn here*

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[delinear]

*Soviet Russia line*

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[E IS mC(Square)]

*Asking mods to upmod above comment*

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[Lord Pillage]

*asking mods to upmod my comment*

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[Errol backfiring]

I think any soldier prefers a trigger to operate rather than accident when he gets the hiccups. And there are already "augmented reality" systems in military use for quite a few years now. Pilots can aim with their helmet in some aircraft.
I see more applications for people who can not use their arms, either because of safety (say, when operating hydraulic presses or other carnivorous machines), because they have their hands full with something else (like helicopter pilots), or because they are disabled.

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[drinkypoo]

*insert bland comment about stupid comments here*

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[u17]

*insert bland comment about

ah fuck it

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[DeadDecoy]

pfft, I was wondering if it could get me a beer, without me ever having to leave my basement.

Better than Mouse+Keyboard for FPS?

[purpledinoz]

I wonder if this would give people an edge in Counter-Strike compared to the regular mouse+keyboard setup. If so, I hope those 12 year olds don't get a hold of it. CS:S is hard enough already!

Re:Better than Mouse+Keyboard for FPS?

[imakemusic]

Whereas Counter-Strike is serious business?

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[wjousts]

We're not comparing Emotiv to Counter-Strike. We are comparing Emotiv to a mouse and a keyboard. Emotiv is a toy with some great marketing spin. A mouse and a keyboard are tools that you can use to get stuff done (including playing Counter-Strike).

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[L4t3r4lu5]

Sure it will, as long as they can maintain an expression of "cautiously aroused" while staring directly up and with one eye shut, jaw clenched.

Be wary, though; If you shut the wrong eye, you drop all of your grenades at your feet and teabag them.

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[Jaqenn]

My understanding is that there's a delay of about 200ms between your brain saying 'click the mouse' and your hand doing so. So there's our baseline.

The brain-scanner has about a 1-second delay before it can 'settle' on a pattern. Useless for people who still have their hands, IMO, though their website claims it's good for tertiary commands like 'show the minimap'.

The facial recognition is supposed to be very fast, and the delay between your brain saying 'twitch your eyebrow' and your face doing so i

cool...one step closer

[hesaigo999ca]

One step closer to getting exoskeletons built and controlled by these headsets to allow people with spinal injuries to walk again.

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[Anonymous Coward]

One step closer to getting exoskeletons built and controlled by these headsets to allow people with spinal injuries to walk again.

I was going for mind-controlled robot girlfriends who will do whatever you want but, yeah, I guess your thing would be pretty good too.

I for one...

[kiehlster]

welcome our new mind-controlled robot overlords.

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[Mindcontrolled]

You called?

hardly EEG

[Anonymous Coward]

Almost all of the degrees of freedom come from head motion and muscle artifact. EEG is very sensitive to facial muscle artifacts, and when you actually record EEG the patients have to keep very still. I've even read of EEG/TMS studies where they use botox to paralyze the scalp muscle. So every time he clenches his jaw, he obliterates the EEG signal over the frontal cortices (the part he is supposedly recording). Basically this whole apparatus is just a fancy, commercial electromyogram (EMG). You can build an EMG with off-the-shelf electronic pieces (i.e. resistors and capicitors) for probably around $10. There's essentially no EEG involved here, except making a headline. Using EMG to control a robot is done every semester in hundreds of undergraduate electronics classes.

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[Cycon]

Almost all of the degrees of freedom come from head motion and muscle artifact. EEG is very sensitive to facial muscle artifacts, and when you actually record EEG the patients have to keep very still.

The larger problem with the Emotiv EPOC headset is that the EEG sensor locations it provides do not match up to where "real" Brain-Computer Interface (BCI) research is focused. So even if you wanted to do control by "pure thought" alone the best-known areas of the brain where these signals are located are not

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[Cycon]

Interesting. I posted much of the above information to the original article, and the content of the post now appears to have been censored:

cyconx

April 27, 2010 01:17:59 GMT

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[dsavi]

In the future: Everyone will steer robots with facial gestures and concentration. And be depressed.

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[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Similar Open Source project for LEGO Mindstorms

[Cycon]

Here is a similar project using the same Emotiv EPOC headset to control LEGO Mindstorms robots via EEG:

http://brainstorms.puzzlebox.info/ [puzzlebox.info]

YouTube video link [youtube.com]

(disclaimer: yes, I'm the project lead)

have been working with one of the EEGs...

[vuffi_raa]

I have been working with the neurosky headset as of late, it is less accurate (not in readings but since it has less contact points id has a more broad measure of activity) and doesn't measure facial features but is as easy as putting on a set of headphones and way less expensive. The emoviv set seems like it could be really cool in more of a controlled setting but I don't see it hooking up to your home console with much success anytime soon.