Abstract of the innovation ‘Thought-controlled Wheelchair’ by DiscoverSTEM Students is published by the prestigious journal – Innovation in Digital Health, Diagnostics and Biomarkers (IDDB)

November 11, 2022

Click here to view the abstract in the Innovations in Digital Health, Diagnostics, and Biomarkers Journal.

Those who are paralyzed must rely on a caretaker to complete day-to-day tasks and remain mobile. To combat this issue, research has been conducted to leverage visually evoked potentials using electroencephalography (EEG) to control wheelchairs. However, most of the resulting products from this research have been expensive and inaccessible to patients.

To address this issue, DiscoverSTEM students have developed an inexpensive attachment for wheelchairs such that any power wheelchair can be easily converted to an EEG-controlled wheelchair. After extensive research on both the P300 and the steady-state visually evoked potential (SSVEP) paradigms, DiscoverSTEM students found that SSVEP is the more practical paradigm for applications related to real-time selections, such as when the user is driving the wheelchair.

DiscoverSTEM students have designed a prototype EEG-controlled wheelchair that consists of an EEG headset, a laptop, a Raspberry Pi circuit, a servo motor, a 3D printed fork to guide a joystick, and a joystick-controlled electric wheelchair. Our innovation can easily be attached to any electric wheelchair with a joystick without damaging or permanently modifying the wheelchair. The system is also portable since the connection between the headset and the laptop is via Bluetooth and the connection between the laptop and the Raspberry Pi is via the user datagram protocol (UDP).

Inventors

Raahi Jogani
Aarish Bhojani
Sofia Sethuraman
Nadia Sethuraman
Zaid Marwat
Abdullah Hasani
Hisham Ahmad
Raed Sharib
Isha Agrawal
Sheza Asif
Vihan Yerubandi

This innovation is featured in Abstract No.: A02012 Affordable EEG-Controlled Wheelchair Attachment for Fully Immobilized Individuals in Volume 2, Issue 2022 of the IDDB journal.

Click here to view the abstract in the Innovations in Digital Health, Diagnostics, and Biomarkers Journal.

About DiscoverSTEM

DiscoverSTEM nurtures child prodigies. Through our various programs, we transform children into young innovators and entrepreneurs who can solve some of the world’s most pressing problems through their patented innovations.

We provide a complete innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem to children and help them transform their unique ideas into practical solutions and products.

For more information on DiscoverSTEM, please contact us HERE.