A prototype of BCI-robot arm system with 1ch acoustic distance measurement device

Patients who have difficulty moving their muscles freely require support for various situations that occur in everyday life. A controllable robot arm without using muscles may make the patient´s quality of life improve. By using a brain-computer interface (BCI), control of the robot arm is possible by thought alone. Therefore, we have constructed several robot arms with an ultrasonic range finder and a web camera for BCI system. By utilizing these devices, collisions between the robot arm and the user could be avoided and control could be partially automated. The distance is very important information in the system. In the present work, an acoustic distance measurement (ADM) device was used. It consists of equipment with easy acquisition and does not need an electronic circuit which is in the ultrasonic range finder. It is a new device and has a possibility of simplifying the ADM device.