BCI Telepresence: A Six Patient Evaluation

Abstract

In this paper we present the results of six motor-disabled patients manoeuvring a telepresence robot via a BCI. Remarkably, although five of the patients had never visited the location where the telepresence robot was operating, they achieved similar performances to a group of four healthy users who were familiar with the environment. In particular, the experimental results confirm the benefits of using shared control for brain-controlled telepresence robots. Shared control empowered all subjects (including the less experienced motor-disabled BCI subjects) to complete a complex BCI task in a comparable time and with a similar number of commands to those required for a manual condition.