You are on page 1of 22

Seminar Report 2013

Brain Controlled Artificial Legs

Chapter 1
INTRODUCTION
From the quotes of the science giant Albert Einstein, It is appallingly obvious that the
technology has exceeded our humanity. This reflects the tremendous growth and influence
of technology in Human culture. In the modern era, technology is the biggest sword and aid
that enumerates the human power and knowledge. It is found that the thoughts are
propagating from our brains in the form of cosmic waves. Of course it is an interesting fact to
know that, these waves can do a lot in connection with the wishes of others. Artificiality, a
word very far from Reality, is the emerging trend that pace the way for many inventions.
Robot is the product which replaces emptiness with fulfilment in this regard. The urge of
man to conquer the world started from the very beginning itself. With the advancements in
technology, new products and possibilities came into existence. Electronic equipment are the
most important gadgets well known today. These products change the world into another
scenario. Now, the world is controlled with the help of advanced microcontrollers and digital
signal processors.
Abilities and disabilities create partialities among human into abled persons and
disabled persons. The loss of a limb is a tragic event and artificial limbs are used to substitute
for this loss. Early artificial limbs were crude, consisting of peg legs and hook-hands.
However, with the developments in surgery and technology better limbs became available. In
the sixteenth century, surgeons who carried out the amputations recruited the help of
craftsmen to provide their patients with artificial limbs which were functionally useful and
resembled the shape of normal limbs.
Significant advances in the development of limb fitting services have been prompted
by the two World Wars. Rapid progress has been made since the 1940s. This is due to the
collaboration of surgeons, engineers and prosthetistto employ new developments in
technology and materials to the rehabilitation of amputees.Modern technology allows people
who have lost limbs to regain normal functions through use of artificial limbs or prosthetics.
Patients have multiple options that allow them to walk, climb steps and run as well as before
their injury. Recent researches and studies in neurology have shown the importance of brain
in every aspect of technology. Intelligence is the key factor. The study regarding the Brain as
the most powerful system has brought great changes in technology.
DEPT OF ECE, KMCTCE

Seminar Report 2013

Brain Controlled Artificial Legs

Fig 1.1. A man with artificial legs


1.1 HISTORY
Prosthetic care goes back to the fifth Egyptian Dynasty (2750-2625 B.C.) archaeologists have
unearthed the oldest known splint from that period. The earliest known written reference to
an artificial limb was made around 500 B.C., Herodotus wrote of a prisoner who escaped
from his chains by cutting off his foot, which he later replaced with a wooden substitute. An
artificial limb dating from 300 B.C., was a copper and wood leg unearthed at Capri, Italy in
1858.
In 1529, French surgeon, Ambroise Pare (1510-1590) introduced amputation as a
lifesaving measure in medicine. Soon after, Pare started developing prosthetic limbs in a
scientific manner. In 1863, Dubois L Parmelee of New York City made an improvement to
the attachment of artificial limbs. He fastened a body socket to the limb with atmospheric
pressure. He was not the first person to do so, but he was the first person to do so with
satisfactory results. In 1898, Dr.Vanghetti invented an artificial limb that could move with
through muscle contraction.
In 1946, a major advancement was made in the attachment of lower limbs. A suction
sock for the above-knee prosthesis was created at University of California (UC) at Berkeley.
In 1975, Ysidro M. Martinez' invention of a below-the-knee prosthesis avoided some of the
problems associated with conventional artificial limbs. Martinez, an amputee himself, took a
theoretical approach in his design. He did not attempt to replicate the natural limb with
articulated joints in the ankle or foot which is seen by Martinez as causing poor gait. His
DEPT OF ECE, KMCTCE

Seminar Report 2013

Brain Controlled Artificial Legs

prosthesis has a high center of mass and is light in weight to facilitate acceleration and
deceleration and reduce friction. The foot is considerably shorter to control acceleration
forces, reducing the friction and pressure.
Robotic legs plays very important role in the artificial legs.in the recent years there
have been significant advancements in artificial limbs. The use of electronics has become
very common in artificial legs. Myoelectric limbs control the limbs by converting muscle
movements to electrical signals, have become much more common than cable operated limbs.
1.2 BRAIN-COMPUTER INTERFACE (BCI)
Brain computer interface (BCI), often called a mind-machine interface (MMI), or
sometimes called a direct neural interface or a brainmachine interface (BMI), is a direct
communication pathway between the brain and an external device. In this definition, the
word brain means the brain or nervous system of an organic life form rather than the mind.
Computer means any processing or computational device, from simple circuits to the
complex microprocessors and microcontrollers. BCIs are often directed at assisting,
augmenting, or repairing human cognitive or sensory-motor functions. Research on BCIs
began in the 1970s at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) under a grant from
the National Science Foundation, followed by a contract from DARPA. The papers published
after this research also mark the first appearance of the expression braincomputer
interface in scientific literature.
The field of BCI research and development has since focused primarily on neuro
prosthetics applications that aim at restoring damaged hearing, sight and movement. Thanks
to the remarkable cortical plasticity of the brain, signals from implanted prostheses can, after
adaptation, be handled by the brain like natural sensor or effector channels. Following years
of animal experimentation, the first neuro prosthetic devices implanted in humans appeared
in the mid-1990s. The history of braincomputer interfaces (BCIs) starts with Hans
Bergers discovery of the electrical activity of the human brain and the development
of electroencephalography (EEG). In 1924 Berger was the first to record human brain activity
by means of EEG. By analysing EEG traces, Berger was able to identify oscillatory
activity in the brain, such as the alpha wave (812 Hz), also known as Berger's wave.
An interesting question for the development of a BCI is how to handle two learning
systems: The machine should learn to discriminate between different patterns of brain activity
DEPT OF ECE, KMCTCE

Seminar Report 2013

Brain Controlled Artificial Legs

as accurate as possible and the user of the BCI should learn to perform different mental tasks
in order to produce distinct brain signals. BCI research makes high demands on the system
and software used. Parameter extraction, pattern recognition and classification are the main
tasks to be performed in a brain signals. In this paper it is assumed that the user of this system
has one leg which is functioning fully and the system is designed accordingly. This system
can be extended for both the legs and it is not limited to the basic operation of human legs
such as walking, running, climbing stairs etc. It can also perform operations like cycling,
hopping etc.
1.3 ADVANTAGES
This system is advantageous in such a way that, it is easy to construct and have simple
control unit. The system occupy very less space since it have ultra-slim design. The chance of
occurring of an error is less in this system. The idea of brain controlled artificial leg can be
extended for both legs and both legs can be made to do operations like walking, running etc.
simultaneously. This semi-automatic system does not need the use of sensors. This brain
controlled artificial leg is very cost effective.

DEPT OF ECE, KMCTCE

Seminar Report 2013

Brain Controlled Artificial Legs

Chapter 2
BRAIN AND BRAIN WAVES
The field of neuroscience encompasses all approaches that seek to understand the brain and
the rest of the nervous system. Psychology seeks to understand mind and behaviour,
and neurology is the medical\ discipline that diagnoses and treats diseases of the nervous
system. The brain is also the most important organ studied in psychiatry, the branch of
medicine that works to study, prevent, and treat mental disorders. Cognitive science seeks to
unify neuroscience and psychology with other fields that concern themselves with the brain,
such as computer science (artificial intelligence and similar fields) and philosophy.
The oldest method of studying the brain is anatomical, and until the middle of the
20th century, much of the progress in neuroscience came from the development of better cell
stains and better microscopes. Neuro anatomists study the large-scale structure of the brain as
well as the microscopic structure of neurons and their components, especially synapses.
Among other tools, they employ a plethora of stains that reveal neural structure, chemistry,
and connectivity. In recent years, the development of immuno staining techniques has
allowed investigation of neurons that express specific sets of genes. Also, functional
neuroanatomy uses medical imaging techniques to correlate variations in human brain
structure with differences in cognition or behaviour.

Fig 2.1. Brain A Powerful system


Neurophysiologists study the chemical, pharmacological, and electrical properties of
the brain: their primary tools are drugs and recording devices. Thousands of experimentally
DEPT OF ECE, KMCTCE

Seminar Report 2013

Brain Controlled Artificial Legs

developed drugs affect the nervous system, some in highly specific ways. Recordings of brain
activity can be made using electrodes, either glued to the scalp as in EEG studies, or
implanted inside the brains of animals for extracellular recordings, which can detect action
potentials generated by individual neurons. Because the brain does not contain pain receptors,
it is possible using these techniques to record brain activity from animals that are awake and
behaving without causing distress.
Electrical activity emanating from the brain is displayed in the form of brainwaves.
There are four categories of these brainwaves ranging from the most activity to the least
activity. When the brain is aroused and actively engaged in mental activities, it generates beta
waves. These beta waves are of relatively low amplitude, and are the fastest of the four
different brainwaves. The frequency of beta waves ranges from 15 to 40 cycles a second.

Table 2.1 Comparison table-Comparison of EEG bands

DEPT OF ECE, KMCTCE

Seminar Report 2013

DEPT OF ECE, KMCTCE

Brain Controlled Artificial Legs

Seminar Report 2013

Brain Controlled Artificial Legs

The next brainwave category in order of frequency is Alpha. Where beta represented
arousal, alpha represents non-arousal. Alpha brainwaves are slower and higher in amplitude.
Their frequency ranges from 9 to 14 cycles per second. The next state, theta brainwaves, is
typically of even greater amplitude and slower frequency. This frequency range is normally
between 5 and 8 cycles a second. A person who has taken time off from a task and begins to
daydream is often in a theta brainwave state. The final brainwave state is delta. Here the
brainwaves are of the greatest amplitude and slowest frequency. They typically centres in a
range of 1.5 to 4 cycles per second. They never go down to zero because that would mean
that you were brain dead. But, deep dreamless sleep would take you down to the lowest
frequency. Typically, 2 to 3 cycles a second. In the proposed system alpha waves and beta
waves are used from the brain for signal processing. It is assumed that the person is in alpha
state and beta state (which is the case normally) and these waves are taken out from the
human brain and converted in the form of electrical signals with the help of electrode caps.
The following figure shows the different types of waves and also the mental state of the
person. Those waves usually vary from a frequency of 1Hz to 40 HZ.
2.1 ELECTROENCEPHALOGRAPHY (EEG)
Electroencephalography (EEG) is the recording ofelectrical activity along the scalp. EEG
measures voltage fluctuations resulting from ionic current flows within the neuronsof
thebrain.In clinical contexts, EEG refers to the recording of the brain's spontaneous electrical
activity over a short period of time, usually 2040 minutes, as recorded from
multipleelectrodesplaced on the scalp.
2.2 ELECTRODES
Electrodes are types of medical equipment places on certain parts of your body that send
electrical pulses to your muscles to stimulate them.
Diagnostic applications generally focus on the spectral content of EEG, that is, the
type of neural oscillations that can be observed in EEG signals. In neurology, the
main diagnostic application of EEG is in the case of epilepsy, as epileptic activity can create
clear abnormalities on a standard EEG study. A secondary clinical use of EEG is in the
diagnosis of coma, encephalopathies, and brain death. A third clinical use of EEG is for
studies of sleep and sleep disorders where recordings are typically done for one full night,
sometimes more. EEG used to be a first-line method for the diagnosis of tumours, stroke and
other focal brain disorders,but this use has decreased with the advent of anatomical imaging
DEPT OF ECE, KMCTCE

Seminar Report 2013

Brain Controlled Artificial Legs

techniques with high (<1 mm) spatial resolution such as MRI and CT. Despite limited spatial
resolution, EEG continues to be a valuable tool for research and diagnosis, especially when
millisecond-range temporal resolution (not possible with CT or MRI) is required.
Derivatives of the EEG technique include evoked potentials (EP), which involves
averaging the EEG activity time-locked to the presentation of a stimulus of some sort
(visual, somatosensory, or auditory). Event-related potentials (ERPs) refer to averaged EEG
responses that are time-locked to more complex processing of stimuli; this technique is used
in cognitive science, cognitive psychology, and psychophysiological research.
The brain's electrical charge is maintained by billions of neurons. Neurons are
electrically charged (or "polarized") by membrane transport proteins that pump ions across
their membranes. Neurons are constantly exchanging ions with the extracellular milieu, for
example to maintain resting potential and to propagate action potentials. Ions of similar
charge repel each other, and when many ions are pushed out of many neurons at the same
time, they can push their neighbours, who push their neighbours, and so on, in a wave. This
process is known as volume conduction. When the wave of ions reaches the electrodes on the
scalp, they can push or pull electrons on the metal on the electrodes. Since metal conducts the
push and pull of electrons easily, the difference in push or pull voltages between any two
electrodes can be measured by a voltmeter. Recording these voltages over time gives us the
EEG.
The electric potential generated by single neuron is far too small to be picked up by
EEG or MEG. EEG activity therefore always reflects the summation of the synchronous
activity of thousands or millions of neurons that have similar spatial orientation. If the cells
do not have similar spatial orientation, their ions do not line up and create waves to be
detected. Pyramidal neurons of the cortex are thought to produce the most EEG signal
because they are well-aligned and fire together. Because voltage fields fall off with the square
of distance, activity from deep sources is more difficult to detect than currents near the skull.
Scalp EEG activity shows oscillations at a variety of frequencies. Several of these
oscillations have characteristic frequency ranges, spatial distributions and are associated with
different states of brain functioning (e.g., waking and the various sleep stages). These
oscillations represent synchronized activity over a network of neurons. The neuronal
networks underlying some of these oscillations are understood (e.g., the thalamo-cortical
resonance underlying sleep spindles), while many others are not (e.g., the system that
DEPT OF ECE, KMCTCE

Seminar Report 2013

Brain Controlled Artificial Legs

generates the posterior basic rhythm). Research that measures both EEG and neuron spiking
finds the relationship between the two is complex with the power of surface EEG in only two
bands (gamma and delta) relating to neuron spike activity.
In conventional scalp EEG, the recording is obtained by placing electrodes on the
scalp with a conductive gel or paste, usually after preparing the scalp area by light abrasion to
reduce impedance due to dead skin cells. Many systems typically use electrodes, each of
which is attached to an individual wire. Some systems use caps or nets into which electrodes
are embedded; this is particularly common when high-density arrays of electrodes are
needed.

DEPT OF ECE, KMCTCE

10

Seminar Report 2013

Brain Controlled Artificial Legs

Chapter 3
BLOCK DIAGRAM
The use of electronics has become very common in artificial limbs.Computers are also used
expensively in the manufacturing of limbs. Computer aided design and computer
manufacturing of often used to assist in the design and manufacture of artificial limbs.
The brain controlled artificial leg is a computer aided design in which the brain

E le c t A m A n a lo g t o S ig in a l M ic r o c o
r o d e p lif D ig it a l P r o c e s n t r o l e r
C a p e r C o n v e te r s o r U n it
computer interface (BCI) is used. The block diagram and its description of the proposed
system is given below.

3.1 ELECTRODE CAP

Electrode locations and names are specified by the International 1020 system for

most clinical and research applications (except when high-density arrays are used). This

system ensures that the naming of electrodes is consistent across laboratories. In most clinical

applications, 19 recording electrodes (plus ground and system reference) are used . A smaller
number of electrodes are typically used when recording EEG from neonates. Additional
electrodes can be added to the standard set-up when a clinical or research application
demands increased spatial resolution for a particular area of the brain. High-density arrays
(typically via cap or net) can contain up to 256 electrodes more-or-less evenly spaced around
the scalp. A typical adult human EEG signal is about 10V to 100 V in amplitude when
measured from the scalp and is about 1020 mV when measured from subdural electrodes.
The 10-20 system or International 10-20 system is an internationally recognized
method to describe and apply the location of scalp electrodes in the context of an EEG test or
DEPT OF ECE, KMCTCE

11

Seminar Report 2013

Brain Controlled Artificial Legs

experiment. This method was developed to ensure standardized reproducibility so that a


subject's studies could be compared over time and subjects could be compared to each other.
This system is based on the relationship between the location of an electrode and the
underlying area of cerebral cortex. The "10" and "20" refer to the fact that the actual distances
between adjacent electrodes are either 10% or 20% of the total front-back or right-left
distance of the skull.

Fig 3.1 Placement of electrodes in cap

Fig 3.2 person wearing an electrode cap

Fig 3.3 Electrode Positions

Each site has a letter to identify the lobe and a number to identify the hemisphere
location. The letters F, T, C, P and O stand for frontal, temporal, central, parietal,
DEPT OF ECE, KMCTCE

12

Seminar Report 2013

Brain Controlled Artificial Legs

and occipital lobes, respectively. Note that there exists no central lobe; the "C" letter is only
used for identification purposes only. A "z"(zero) refers to an electrode placed on the midline.
Even numbers (2, 4, 6, and 8) refer to electrode positions on the right hemisphere, whereas
odd numbers (1, 3, 5, and 7) refer to those on the left hemisphere.
Two anatomical landmarks are used for the essential positioning of the EEG
electrodes: first, the nasion which is the distinctly depressed area between the eyes, just above
the bridge of the nose; second, the inion, which is the lowest point of the skull from the back
of the head and is normally indicated by a prominent bump.
When recording a more detailed EEG with more electrodes, extra electrodes are
added utilizing the spaces in-between the existing 10-20 system. This new electrode-namingsystem is more complicated giving rise to the Modified Combinatorial Nomenclature (MCN).
This MCN system uses 1, 3, 5, 7, and 9 for the left hemisphere which represents 10%, 20%,
30%, 40%, and 50% of the inion-to-nasion distance respectively. The introduction of extra
lettersallows the naming of extra electrode sites. Note that these new letters do not
necessarily refer to an area on the underlying cerebral cortex.
3.2 DIFFERENTIAL AMPLIFIER

Each electrode is connected to one input of a differential amplifier (one amplifier per pair of
electrodes) a common system reference electrode is connected to the other input of each
differential amplifier. These amplifiers amplify the voltage between the active electrode and
the reference (typically 1,000100,000 times, or 60100 dB of voltage gain). In analog EEG,
the signal is then filtered (next paragraph), and the EEG signal is output as the deflection of
pens as paper passes underneath.
3.3 ANALOG TO DIGITAL CONVERTER

Most EEG systems these days, however, are digital, and the amplified signal is digitized via
an analog-to-digital converter, after being passed through an anti-aliasing filter. Analog to
digital converter (abbreviated ADC, A/D or A to D) is a device that converts the input
continuous physical quantity to a digital number that represents the quantity's amplitude. The
conversion involves quantization of the input, so it introduces a small amount of error. The
inverse operation is performed by a digital-to-analog converter (DAC). Instead of doing a
single conversion, an ADC often performs the conversions ("samples" the input) periodically.
Analog-to-digital sampling typically occurs at 256512 Hz in clinical scalp EEG; sampling
DEPT OF ECE, KMCTCE

13

Seminar Report 2013

Brain Controlled Artificial Legs

rates of up to 20 kHz are used in some research applications. The result is a sequence of
digital values that have converted a continuous-time and continuous-amplitudeanalog
signal to a discrete-time and discrete-amplitude digital signal.
An ADC may also provide an isolated measurement such as an electronic device that
converts an input analog voltage or current to a digital number proportional to the magnitude
of the voltage or current. However, some non-electronic or only partially electronic devices,
such as rotary encoders, can also be considered ADCs.The digital output may use different
coding schemes. Typically the digital output will be a two's complement binary number that
is proportional to the input, but there are other possibilities. An encoder, for example, might
output a Gray code. The digital EEG signal is stored electronically and can be filtered for
display. Typical settings for the high-pass filter and a low-pass filter are 0.5-1 Hz and 35
70 Hz, respectively.
3.4 SIGNAL PROCESSOR

A signal processor is a device which processes signals containing information. Also analog
signals with analog electronics is used, the name means mostly digital electronics circuits that
processes

digital

signals.

Most

modern

signal

processors

are

either

dedicated

microprocessorintegrated circuits or general-purpose programmable microprocessors. A DSP


(digital signal processor) is an electronic device which serves the purpose of signal
processing.
Using the output signal from the A/D converter, parameter extraction, pattern
classification and pattern identification are done. Then the signals are fed to a Fast Fourier
Transform Unit. This is done to simplify the calculations. An FFT algorithm computes the
result in O (N log N) operations instead of O (N2) operations. The output signals from the
signal processor are fed to a Microcontroller unit.
3.4.1 Fast Fourier Transform

A fast

Fourier

transform (FFT)

is

an algorithm to

compute

the discrete

Fourier

transform (DFT) and its inverse. There are many different FFT algorithms involving a wide
range of mathematics, from simple complex-number arithmetic to group theory and number
theory; this article gives an overview of the available techniques and some of their general
properties, while the specific algorithms are described in subsidiary articles linked below.

DEPT OF ECE, KMCTCE

14

Seminar Report 2013

Brain Controlled Artificial Legs

The DFT is obtained by decomposing a sequence of values into components of


different frequencies. This operation is useful in many fields (see discrete Fourier
transform for properties and applications of the transform) but computing it directly from the
definition is often too slow to be practical. An FFT is a way to compute the same result more
quickly: computing the DFT of N points in the naive way, using the definition, takes O(N2)
arithmetical operations, while an FFT can compute the same DFT in only O(N log N)
operations. The difference in speed can be substantial, especially for long data sets
where N may be in the thousands or millions. In practice, the computation time can be
reduced by several orders of magnitude in such cases, and the improvement is
roughly proportional to N / log (N). This huge improvement made the calculation of the DFT
practical; FFTs are of great importance to a wide variety of applications, from digital signal
processing and solving partial differential equations to algorithms for quick multiplication of
large integers.
The best-known FFT algorithms depend upon the factorization of N, but there are
FFTs with O (N log (N)) complexity for all N, even for prime N. Many FFT algorithms only
depend on the fact that is an Nthprimitive root of unity, and thus can be applied to analogous
transforms over any finite field, such as number-theoretic transforms. Since the inverse DFT
is the same as the DFT, but with the opposite sign in the exponent and a 1/N factor, any FFT
algorithm can easily be adapted for it.The FFT has been described as "the most
important numerical algorithm of our lifetime".

3.5 MICROCONTROLLER

A microcontroller (sometimes abbreviated C, uC or MCU) is a small computer on a single


integrated

circuit containing

processor

core,

memory,

and

programmable

input/output peripherals. Program memory in the form of NOR flash or OTP ROM is also
often included on chip, as well as a typically small amount of RAM. Microcontrollers are
designed for embedded applications, in contrast to the microprocessors used in personal
computers or other general purpose applications.
Microcontrollers are used in automatically controlled products and devices, such as
automobile engine control systems, implantable medical devices, remote controls, office
machines, appliances, power tools, toys and other embedded systems. By reducing the size
DEPT OF ECE, KMCTCE

15

Seminar Report 2013

Brain Controlled Artificial Legs

and cost compared to a design that uses a separate microprocessor, memory, and input/output
devices, microcontrollers make it economical to digitally control even more devices and
processes. Mixed signal microcontrollers are common, integrating analog components needed
to control non-digital electronic systems.
Some microcontrollers may use four-bit words and operate at clock rate frequencies
as low as 4 kHz for low power consumption (mill watts or microwatts). They will generally
have the ability to retain functionality while waiting for an event such as a button press or
other interrupt; power consumption while sleeping (CPU clock and most peripherals off) may
be just Nano watts, making many of them well suited for long lasting battery applications.
Other microcontrollers may serve performance-critical roles, where they may need to act
more like a digital signal processor (DSP), with higher clock speeds and power consumption.
The output signals from the signal processor are fed to a microcontroller unit. This
microcontroller unit performs the robotic operation with the help of a stepper motor. It will
control the operations such as walking, running, etc. depending upon the input signal. For
different patterns of input signals it will be pre-programmed to do a specific operation. The
reference signal will be already stored in the microcontroller memory in digital form. Usually
an 8 bit or a 16 bit microcontroller is preferred depending upon the number of operations to
be performed. The complexity of the microcontroller programming increases with the number
of operations which has to be performed.

DEPT OF ECE, KMCTCE

16

Seminar Report 2013

Brain Controlled Artificial Legs

Chapter 4
WORKING OF THE SYSTEM
For every human activity the brain waves changes its pattern. For example, if a person moves
his/her hands then a specific pattern of brain wave is obtained and if the same person moves
his/her legs then a different pattern of brain wave is obtained. Even if a person thinks of
moving his/her legs a brain wave of specific pattern is produced and it is sent to the legs and
then the operation of moving the legs is performed. The same brain waves are produced even
for a person who is not having his/her legs. But the operation of moving the legs will not be
performed due to the absence of legs. So, just by thinking of moving the legs, a brain wave
which is capable of performing a specific operation is generated in the brain. Due to the lack
of the appropriate system, the activity will not be performed successfully. In the proposed
system, the brain waves are pre-recorded for each operation to be performed and these waves
are used as reference signals. These signals are stored in the microcontroller memory. For
each reference signal in the microcontroller memory, the robotic leg is pre-programmed to do
a specific operation. When the reference signal matches with the actual signal from the users
brain, the robotic leg will do the pre-programmed operation with the help of the
microcontroller.
For example, let us say that the user is thinking of walking. So a brain wave will be
produced. These waves are processed and then it is converted in to digital signals. These
signals are compared with the pre-recorded reference signals and a match in the signal pattern
will be found in the microcontroller. The operation for this particular pre-recorded signal will
be pre-programmed in the microcontroller circuit i.e. walking and thus the microcontroller
will send the control signal to the artificial robotic leg and the robotic leg will perform the
required operation. Usually a stepper motor controlled robotic leg is used for this purpose.
Similarly to walking, other operations can also be performed using the artificial leg. This
system is very user friendly and the system can be designed according to the users
requirements i.e. the number of operations required for the user can be fixed by him and the
system can be designed accordingly. So the number of operations that has to be performed by
the leg can be increased or decreased and the complexity of the design varies accordingly.
DEPT OF ECE, KMCTCE

17

Seminar Report 2013

Brain Controlled Artificial Legs

This idea can be extended for both the legs and both the legs can be made to do operations
like walk, run etc. simultaneously. Thus the system is versatile. This system is hundred
percent feasible in the real time environment and it can be implanted to any human
irrespective of their age.

Fig 4.1Proposed Model of the artificial legs

Fig 4.2 External appearance of artificial Leg

DEPT OF ECE, KMCTCE

18

Seminar Report 2013

Brain Controlled Artificial Legs

Fig 4.3(a) Walking with artificial legs.

Fig 4. 4A Man walking with artificial legs

DEPT OF ECE, KMCTCE

19

Brain ControlledArtificialLegs

Normal Artificial Legs

1. Ease of Construction

Complex in construction

Cost is not more

Cost

than Rs.5,00,000

$90,000(Rs.35,00,000 to

is

about

$80,000-

Rs.40,00,000)
User can have full control over the User cannot have full control over the
artificial leg.

artificial leg.

Semi-Automatic
Requires simple control unit.

Fully automatic
Requires complex control unit.

Sensors are absent

Sensors are present

Table 4.1 Difference between the Brain Controlled Artificial legs and the Normal Artificial Legs

Chapter 4

CONCLUSIONS
With the recent advancement in the technology, Brain Controlled Artificial leg can be made
as a reality. The Brain-Computer Interface (BCI) is the technology used here. The
performance of the proposed system will be better than the existing artificial legs as the user
has full control over the Brain Controlled Artificial Legs. Hence it behaves like a normal
human leg. The builtin battery lasts anywhere from 25 to 40 hours so it can support a full
days activity. The recharge can be performed overnight or while traveling in a car via a
cigarette lighter adapter. The cost of the proposed system is found to be very less when
compared to the existing ones. So, even the middle class people who cannot purchase the
existing artificial legs can make use of this proposed system. With this system life can be
made easier for the handicapped persons and they can also do their day-to-day activities
normally without any difficulties.

REFERENCES

1. International Journal of Computer Engineering and Technology (IJCET), ISSN 0976


6367(Print), ISSN 0976 6375(Online) Volume 3, Issue 3, October-December (2012)
2. Digital Signal Processing Principles, Algorithms and Applications by J.G.Proakis
and D.G.Manolakis.
3. Digital Signal Processing: Principles, Devices and Applications by Norman Barrie
jones and J.D.Mack Watson.
4. A guide to Methods in the Bio-Medical Sciences by Ronald B.Corley.
5. Handbook of Bio-Medical Instrumentation by R.S.Khandpur.
6. Integrated Electronics: Analog and Digital Circuits and System by Jacob Millman
and Christos C.Halkias.

You might also like