Asynchronous Brain-Computer Interface to Navigate in Virtual Environments Using One Motor Imagery

Abstract

A Brain-Computer Interface (BCI) application focused on the control of a wheelchair must consider the danger which a wrong command would involve in a real situation. Virtual reality is a suitable tool to provide subjects with the opportunity to train and test the application before using it under real conditions. Recent studies aimed at such control let the subject decide the timing of the interaction, those are the so-called asynchronous BCI. One way to reduce the probability of misclassification is to achieve control with only two different mental tasks. The system presented in this paper combines the mentioned advantages in a paradigm that enables the control of a virtual wheelchair with three commands: move forward, turn left and turn right. The results obtained over three subjects support the viability of the proposed system.