Brain controlled wheel chair – Version 0.1

Brain is the most important part of a Human Being, Whatever we’ve achieved today are the fruitions of the Human Brain. It is the Brain which controls our daily activities and behavior. The Human Brain can build trillions of thoughts and convert them physically, which represents our personality and behavior. So, by our “Brain Controlled Wheelchair” we try to present the functions which our brain offers and extend it further by combining  electroencephalography (EEG) technology and the ability of our beloved Brain. We are using this biosensor to sense the brain waves of the physically challenged people to actuate the particular work have to be done.

We decided to do research on this technology because this allows the person to control things in a certain limit without doing any physical work. We believe this research is important as this kind of technology will be of comfort to physically challenged people. It will allow the physically challenged people to control thing by just thinking, which eliminates the problems they’ve been facing.

 

This brain controlled wheel chair is made possible by EEG sensor. We used Neurosky eeg sensor with dry-electrode, it senses the signals from the human brain, filters out extraneous noise and electrical interference and converts to digital power. This “brain-power” can be used in health and wellness, education and entertainment.

hardware used :

• Arduino Mega
• H bridge custom-made Motor driver
• Four DC motors
• And Lead acid battery 12v 7Amp

Softwares used :

• NI LabView
• Arduino
• Mind Wave mobile core

Basic algorithm of this wheel chair :

EEG Signals :

DELTA WAVES(0.5 – 3Hz)

• Generated in deepest meditation and dreamless sleep.
• Healing and regeneration are stimulated in this state.

THETA WAVES(3-8Hz)

• The Light Meditation And Sleeping Wave
• Present during deep meditation and light sleep, including the all-important REM dream state.

ALPHA WAVES(8 – 12Hz) 

• The deepest relaxation wave.
• Aids overall mental coordination, calmness, alertness, mind/body integration and learning.

BETA WAVES (12-38Hz)

• The walking consciousness and reasoning wave.

But the algorithm involves only two parameters in this version 0.1 brain controlled wheel chair, they are

• Concentration
• Eye blink

That is in between delta and theta wave. In this no hardware filter is used because the neurosky sensor already have inbuilt filter which removes basic noise in the signal.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              In this version 0.1 only forward and backward is made possible by very simple algorithm as you can see in flow chart. This allows very easy control on wheel chair by just thinking. As the algorithm uses two parameters for one single action as per the program, this gives very robust output in all condition.

Even if one parameter not matches with the algorithm the output signal from ardiuno to motor driver logic is zero. Only when the both parameters matches with the algorithm, then the motor rotates according to the program.

Motor Driver :

An H bridge is an electronic circuit that enables a voltage to be applied across a load in either direction. These circuits are often used in robotics and other applications to allow DC motors to run forwards and backwards.

The H-bridge arrangement is generally used to reverse the polarity/direction of the motor, but can also be used to ‘brake’ the motor, where the motor comes to a sudden stop, as the motor’s terminals are shorted, or to let the motor ‘free run’ to a stop, as the motor is effectively disconnected from the circuit.

Components used in H bridge motor driver :

• Mosfet (2 P CHANNEL)
• Mosfet (2 N CHANNEL)
• Transistor (2 NPN)

For this motor driver we used two type of cooling systems, the first one is heat sink which is attached to the mosfets. This helps the mosfet to cool by dissipating the temperature from mosfet by increasing the heat conducting area. The second is air cooling system, in this we used 12v computer fan above the four mosfets and other electronic components as a cooling system.

 Brain wave signal from Neurosky sensor :

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We have done a little effort for the physically challenged people whom the society has discarded (separated or created a boundary)

Every Homo sapiens have the right to fulfill their dreams, and why their disability should held them back.

So, i believe this brain controlled wheel chair will help the physically challenged people to fulfill their dreams and live happily.

Just like Lucid dreaming could provide the handicapped and other disadvantaged people with the nearest thing to fulfilling their impossible dreams: paralytics could walk again in their dreams, to say nothing of dancing and flying. Such sensorimotor practice could conceivably facilitate recovery from stroke, we can imitate and try to present the product to the people which satisfies their needs.

Everyone is born the same, but those who have the zeal, courage and an endeavor to pursue a positive attitude towards the life stays motivated and blessed by others.

“There should be no boundaries to human endeavor. We are all different. However bad life may seem, there is always something you can do, and succeed at. While there’s life, there is hope.”- S.H.

Check out the demo video here 😀