Advanced Human Robot

Interfaces and Controls   

In the Summer of 2010, I worked at the Human-Centered Robotics Laboratory at NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in a team of undergraduate students researching the development of interfaces for biological signal collection to control robotic devices. Given that neural signals from a human scalp can be used for the brain-actuated control of robotic devices, this project aimed to improve the low signal-to-noise ratio and time consuming experimental setups, which are still current problems in this field.

 

In this project, I developed an electroencephalography (EEG) electrode headband interface to control a robotic arm. The user-controlled headband had 7 electrodes to read brain signals (focused on the fronto-parietal regions) and then classified and assigned them as distinct functions to be performed by the robotic device.