A Flexible Bio-Signal Based HMI for Hands-Free Control of an Electric Powered Wheelchair

This paper presents a bio-signal based human machine interface (HMI) for hands-free control of an electric powered wheelchair. In this novel HMI, an Emotive EPOC sensor is deployed to detect facial expressions and head movements of users, which are then recognised and converted to four uni-modal control modes and two bi-modal control modes to operate the wheelchair. Nine facial expressions and up-down head movements have been defined and tested, so that users can select some of these facial expressions and head movements to form the six control commands. The proposed HMI is user-friendly and allows users to select one of six available control modes according to their comfort. Experiments are conducted to show the feasibility and performance of the proposed HMI.