Title: Real-time man-machine interface and control using deliberate eye blink

Authors: Dipali Bansal; Rashima Mahajan; Sujit Roy; Dheeraj Rathee; Shweta Singh

Addresses: Electronics & Communication Engineering Department, Faculty of Engineering & Technology, Manav Rachna International University, Faridabad, Haryana, India ' Department of EEE, Faculty of Engineering & Technology, Manav Rachna International University, Faridabad, Haryana, India ' Department of CSE, Faculty of Engineering & Technology, Manav Rachna International University, Faridabad, Haryana, India ' Department of Instrumentation & Control Engineering, Netaji Subash Institute of Technology (NSIT), New Delhi, India ' Department of EEE, Faculty of Engineering & Technology, Manav Rachna International University, Faridabad, Haryana, India

Abstract: There has been a tremendous growth in the field of neural controlled robotic systems having utility limited not only to physically challenged but also for improving performance of healthy users. In this work, real-time EEG signal is acquired for deliberate eye blink action in MATLAB and Independent Component Analysis decomposition is done and corresponding epochs are extracted. The deliberate action shows significant rise in the event related potential from 0 µV to 175.1 µV at frontal channel AF3. Scalp maps also show that frontal regions are activated at 3 Hz and 10 Hz thus, representing the activation of delta band power (0-4 Hz) and alpha band power (8-13 Hz). The component activation is used to generate an 'active high' output during deliberate eye blinking to play an audio file. This reflects the use of EEG as a trigger in developing more intuitive brain-computer interfaces in real-time scenario.

Keywords: event-related potential; EEG signals; electroencephalograms; eye blink; Emotiv unit; MATLAB; human-machine interface; real time HCI; neural control; biomedical engineering; brain-computer interface; BCI; rehabilitation; medical robots; brain controlled robotics.

DOI: 10.1504/IJBET.2015.071011

International Journal of Biomedical Engineering and Technology, 2015 Vol.18 No.4, pp.370 - 384

Received: 24 Oct 2014
Accepted: 23 Jan 2015
Published online: 05 Aug 2015 *

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