In the 2020 World Robotics Competition—BCI (Brain-Computer-Interface) Control Brain Robot Contest held in early December, the C2Mind team composed by Prof. Gao Zhongke’s team from the School of Electrical and Information Engineering, and members from the Tencent Tianyan Laboratory entered the finals of BCI Control Brain Robot Contest and won two championships in both the "temporal lobe brain unit" and the "temporal lobe brain machine training set". The temporal lobe brain unit competition is about Motor Imagery (MI) paradigm, which plays an important role in the field of neurorehabilitation and has great clinical application value.
MI is a very important BCI paradigm, which involves the collaboration of different brain regions, and can reflect the information interaction among brain regions and the brain's information processing mechanism. This paradigm has extremely high application value in the medical field.
MI can be used as a means of activating the motor network and helps stroke patients to improve the motor function of their limbs at any stage by remodeling the brain's nerves. The MI-based BCI can perfectly combine the imagination of the human brain and the actual motor control. When applied to the rehabilitation training of patients with brain injury such as Parkinson, the MI-based BCI will enable the patient's limbs to exercise and improve the patient's living standard. It can also be used to analyze the EEG signals of patients with epilepsy and conduct the electrical stimulation of the brain after abnormal discharge of neurons is detected, thereby reducing seizures and realizing the location of the lesion.
The World Robot Contest (WRC) is a professional competition that is held annually. It has attracted more than 120,000 contestants from over 20 countries. Due to its technical expertise and extensive influence, the competition was praised as the "Olympics" in the field of robotics by major domestic and foreign mainstream media. The BCI Control Brain Robot Contest is a top-notch scientific research event in WRC, aiming to create a world-class brain-computer interface event integrating technology, innovation and practicality. The competition has been successfully held for three sessions, mainly focusing on BCI research and practical application. The mission of the contest is to integrate technology with other disciplines and apply it to the fields of medical rehabilitation, elderly care and the assistance of disable people so as to serve the public and invigorate artificial intelligence (AI).
BCI is a technology that enables direct communication between users’ brains and external devices by converting the neuron activity of the user's brains into specific instructions.
This technology provides a new approach of brain control for the interaction between humans and robots that makes the control and operation of robots by humans more efficient and convenient. This technology incorporates advanced sensing technology, brain science, neuroscience, signal detection and processing technology, intelligent perception, pattern recognition and other disciplines, and has become a cutting-edge technology and research hotspot in biomedical engineering, computer engineering and artificial intelligence. Now, it has been widely used in medical, education, military, entertainment, security and other fields.
This competition attracted scientific researchers from many universities and enterprises around the world. The fierce competition witnessed many breakthroughs in BCI technology.
By Cheng Sheng
Editor: Eva Yin
