A BCI Platform Supporting AAL Applications

Brain Computer Interface (BCI) technology can provide users lacking voluntary muscle control with an augmentative communication channel, based on the interpretation of her/his brain activity. Such technologies, combined with AAL (Ambient Assisted Living) systems, can potentially have a great impact on daily living, extending the scope of the ageing at home paradigm also to individuals affected by severe motor impairments, for whom interacting with the environment is troublesome. In this paper, a low cost BCI development platform is presented; it consists of a customized EEG acquisition unit and a Matlab-based signal processing environment. An application example using SSVEP paradigm is discussed. © 2014 Springer International Publishing