Brain control is a new control method. The traditional brain-controlled robot is mainly used to control a single robot to accomplish a specific task. However, the brain-controlled multi-robot cooperation (MRC) task is a new topic to be studied. This paper presents an experimental research which received the "Innovation Creative Award" in the brain-computer interface (BCI) brain-controlled robot contest at the World Robot Contest. Two effective brain switches were set: total control brain switch and transfer switch, and BCI based steady-state visual evoked potentials (SSVEP) was adopted to navigate a humanoid robot and a mechanical arm to complete the cooperation task. Control test of 10 subjects showed that the excellent SSVEP-BCI can be used to achieve the MRC task by appropriately setting up the brain switches. This study is expected to provide inspiration for the future practical brain-controlled MRC task system.
Brain-controlled wheelchair (BCW) is one of the important applications of brain-computer interface (BCI) technology. The present research shows that simulation control training is of great significance for the application of BCW. In order to improve the BCW control ability of users and promote the application of BCW under the condition of safety, this paper builds an indoor simulation training system based on the steady-state visual evoked potentials for BCW. The system includes visual stimulus paradigm design and implementation, electroencephalogram acquisition and processing, indoor simulation environment modeling, path planning, and simulation wheelchair control, etc. To test the performance of the system, a training experiment involving three kinds of indoor path-control tasks is designed and 10 subjects were recruited for the 5-day training experiment. By comparing the results before and after the training experiment, it was found that the average number of commands in Task 1, Task 2, and Task 3 decreased by 29.5%, 21.4%, and 25.4%, respectively (P < 0.001). And the average number of commands used by the subjects to complete all tasks decreased by 25.4% (P < 0.001). The experimental results show that the training of subjects through the indoor simulation training system built in this paper can improve their proficiency and efficiency of BCW control to a certain extent, which verifies the practicability of the system and provides an effective assistant method to promote the indoor application of BCW.