Towards Design and Implementation of an EEG-based BCI TV Remote Control

Abstract

BCI is a rapidly growing field within biomedical engineering as it enables a direct connection between the central nervous system and an external device. BCI detects brain signals using biosensors (electrodes) installed on the head’s scalp or implanted inside the brain. EEG is a non-invasive method for detecting and monitoring the brain’s activity. Using EEG-based BCI in the medical field can significantly help disabled people to perform daily activities. In this context, it is very important to support and enable paralysed people to interact with multimedia devices like televisions by developing suitable solutions. This paper proposes an EEG mind-controlled TV remote control system prototype. The proposed prototype uses affordable hardware components to perform its task. A quantitative questionnaire has been conducted to identify the system’s functional and non-functional requirements. The system can send four different signals to power on/off, change the channel, raise and reduce the volume of the TV. The system has been tested by 20 subjects. The testing results show that the accuracy of the system is 74.9%. Despite the system being able to control only four TV functions, the system is scalable, and more commands can be added in the future. Also, using Raspberry Pi in the system gives a great possibility to eliminate the computer and to use Raspberry Pi directly with the headset. This paper demonstrates the approach’s feasibility and opens the route for enhancing the system and using EEG-based BCI with more and different devices.