Brain-controlled wheelchairs (BCWs) are a promising solution for people with severe motor disabilities, who cannot use conventional interfaces. However, the low reliability of electroencephalographic signal decoding and the high user's workload imposed by continuous control of a wheelchair requires effective approaches. In this article, we propose a self-paced P300-based brain–computer interface (BCI) combined with dynamic time-window commands and a collaborative controller. The self-paced approach allows users to switch between control and noncontrol states without requiring any additional task or mental strategy, while the dynamic time-window commands allow balancing the reliability and speed of the BCI. The collaborative controller, combining user's intentions and navigation information, offers the possibility to navigate in complex environments and to improve the overall system reliability. The feasibility of the proposed approach and the impact of each system component (self-paced, dynamic time window, and collaborative controller) are systematically validated in a set of experiments conducted with seven able-bodied participants and six physically disabled participants steering a robotic wheelchair in real-office-like environments. These two groups controlled the BCW with a final driving accuracy greater than 99%. Quantitative and subjective results, assessed through questionnaires, attest to the effectiveness of the proposed approach. Altogether, these findings contribute to improving the usability of BCWs and, hence, the potential for their use by target users in home settings.

中文翻译：

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具有协作控制器的自定节奏BCI，用于高度可靠的轮椅驾驶：针对肢体残障人士的实验测试

对于不能使用传统界面的严重运动障碍人士，脑控轮椅（BCW）是一种有前途的解决方案。然而，脑电信号解码的低可靠性和轮椅的连续控制所带来的高用户工作量需要有效的方法。在本文中，我们提出了一种基于P300的自定进度的脑机接口（BCI），该接口结合了动态时间窗口命令和协作控制器。自定步调方法允许用户在控制状态和非控制状态之间切换，而无需任何其他任务或思维策略，而动态时间窗口命令可在BCI的可靠性和速度之间取得平衡。协作控制器，结合了用户的意图和导航信息，提供了在复杂环境中导航并提高整体系统可靠性的可能性。该方法的可行性以及每个系统组件（自定步调，动态时间窗口和协作控制器）的影响在一组实验中得到了系统验证，该实验由7名身体健康的参与者和6名肢体残疾的参与者操纵了机器人轮椅在类似于办公室的环境中。这两组控制BCW的最终行驶精度大于99％。通过问卷评估的定量和主观结果证明了该方法的有效性。总而言之，这些发现有助于改善BCW的可用性，因此，有可能被家庭环境中的目标用户使用。