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Neurorobotics Presentation 9

This document summarizes a study that designed a brain-machine interface (BMI) using motor imagery to control a lower-limb exoskeleton. Two subjects participated in training sessions where they performed motor imagery and attention tasks while EEG signals were recorded. The BMI was able to classify the signals and control the exoskeleton in real-time with 64.5% accuracy and few false activations. The goal is for this BMI to help people with motor impairments walk using an exoskeleton controlled by their brain activity.

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Hamza Minhas
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52 views9 pages

Neurorobotics Presentation 9

This document summarizes a study that designed a brain-machine interface (BMI) using motor imagery to control a lower-limb exoskeleton. Two subjects participated in training sessions where they performed motor imagery and attention tasks while EEG signals were recorded. The BMI was able to classify the signals and control the exoskeleton in real-time with 64.5% accuracy and few false activations. The goal is for this BMI to help people with motor impairments walk using an exoskeleton controlled by their brain activity.

Uploaded by

Hamza Minhas
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PPTX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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A BMI Based on Motor Imagery and

Attention for Commanding a Lower-Limb


Robotic Exoskeleton: A Case Study

Laura Ferrero, Vicente Quiles, Mario Ortiz , Eduardo Iáñez and José M.
Azorín
Applied Sciences (MDPI) – 2021

Neurorobotics Research Group, Air University 1


Introduction
• The aim of the present study was the design of a BMI based on motor imagery
(MI) to control the gait of a lower-limb exoskeleton. The evaluation is carried
out with able-bodied subjects as a preliminary study since potential users are
people with motor limitations.
• The BMI combines two different paradigms for reducing the false triggering
rate, one based on motor imagery and another one based on the attention to the
gait of the user. Research was divided into two parts; training phase and test
phase.
• Results indicate that, after several sessions, the developed system may be
employed for controlling a lower-limb exoskeleton, which could benefit
people with motor impairment as an assistance device and/or as a therapeutic
approach with very limited false activations

Neurorobotics Research Group, Air University 2


Introduction
• The combination of lower-limb robotic exoskeletons with brain–machine
interfaces (BMI), offers a new method to provide motor support. Thus,
patients could walk while being assisted by an exoskeleton that is controlled
by their brain activity.
• When performing MI, in contrast to external stimuli, brain changes are
induced voluntarily and internally by the subject. BMI based on MI have
the objective of identifying different MI tasks or differentiating between MI
and an idle state.
• The performance of maintained brain tasks can be challenging as it requires
high focus from the user during the whole experiment and any external
influence could easily disturb it.

Neurorobotics Research Group, Air University 3


Methodology
• In this study, the BMI designed was adapted for the control of the gait of a
lower-limb exoskeleton and it was evaluated with able-bodied subjects. The
combination of this BMI with a lower-limb exoskeleton is a promising and
intuitive assistive approach for people with motor impairment. In addition,
it could potentially benefit people with cortical damage (e.g., after a stroke)
as a therapeutic approach for the recovery of lost motor function.
• Two subjects participated in the study (mean age 23.5 ± 3.5). Brain activity
was recorded with electroencephalography (EEG). A 32-electrode system
(Brain Products GmbH, Germany) was employed to record EEG signals.
Four electrodes were located next to the eyes to record electrooculography
(EOG) and ground and reference electrodes were located on the right and
left ear lobes, respectively.

Neurorobotics Research Group, Air University 4


Experimental Setup

5
Experimental Design
• Each participant completed several sessions, and each session was divided
into two parts. The first part consisted of the training phase, in which the
exoskeleton was in opened loop control. Thus, it was remotely controlled
by the laptop with predefined commands based on the mental tasks to be
registered and not by the output of the BMI classifier.
• In the first part of each session, subjects performed 20 trials. Each trial
consisted of a sequence of three mental tasks: MI of the gait, idle state and
regressive count.
• The Test Phase of the session allowed assessment of the BMI performance
during closed-loop control of the exoskeleton. Commands issued by the
BMI were sent to the exoskeleton in real time based on the decoding of the
brain activity obtained as output of the BMI classifier,

6
Brain Machine Interface
In the test phase, the exoskeleton was controlled by BMI decoded commands.
MI classifiers could predict two classes, 0 for idle state and 1 for MI.
Performance of closed-loop trials was assessed with the following indices:

• %MI and %Att: percentage of epochs of data correctly classified for


each paradigm.
• %Commands: percentage of epochs of data with correct control
commands.
• Accuracy commands: percentage of correct commands issued.
• True positive ratio (TPR): percentage of MI periods in which a walking
event is executed.

7
Brain Machine Interface
• During the training phase, results showed an average accuracy of 68.44 ±
8.46% for the MI paradigm and 65.45 ± 5.53% for the attention paradigm.
Then, during the test phase, the exoskeleton was controlled by the BMI and
the average performance was 64.50 ± 10.66%, with very few false
positives.

8
Results
• Each session was divided into two parts: the training and test phases.
During half of the trials, the exoskeleton was walking, and during the other
half, it was completely static.
• The BMI worked as a state machine that used different classifiers
depending on whether the exoskeleton was static or moving. Training trials
were used to train the classifiers corresponding to each state of the state
machine.
• Participants did not have any motor impairment, but since the main of
objective of the system is to promote neurorehabilitation and
neuroplasticity, future research will focus on people with motor disabilities.

Neurorobotics Research Group, Air University 9

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