Play table tennis with your thoughts -- MEDICA - World Forum for Medicine


g.tec Guger Technologies OEG

Play table tennis with your thoughts


One of the oldest dreams in mankind is to do something without moving. A brain-computer interface (BCI) realizes this dream by analyzing the brain activity of humans. Therefore users can control by specific thoughts cursors on a computer screen. In this application 2 persons are connected to the system in order to control a tennis racket just by thoughts and to play pong with each other.

The activity of the brain is therefore either recorded with EEG (Electroencephalogram) electrodes mounted onto the surface of the head or with implanted ECoG (Elctrocorticogram) electrode grids.
g.tec developed a sophisticated biosignal amplifier which allows acquiring both signals simultaneously with very high accuracy. The amplifier is just plugged into an USB port of the notebook for signal acquisition. Very important is also the patient safety when the electrodes are invasively implanted. The g.tec biosignal amplifier g.USBamp has therefore the CE and FDA approval for invasive and non-invasive recordings in humans.
The big advantage of the ECoG recordings is the better signal quality of the brain signals. Therefore even a single electrode overlaying a specific brain region can generate a reliable control signal for a BCI system. On the surface of the head the EEG measures the activity of millions of neuron to extract the control signal.
g.tec, seated in Graz/Austria, is currently supplying most of the BCI research centers all over the world with the technology. The systems are very flexible designed to realize many different applications.

Markus Waldhauser, DI (FH)
g.tec Guger Technologies OEG
Herbersteinstrasse 60
8020 Graz
Tel: ++43-7251-22240-14

Information about the BCI:

Medica, Düsseldorf, Germany,
14. - 17.11.2007: Hall 17, Stand: C20-3
Live demonstrations of the BCI are from Wednesday until Saturday
at 11 a.m. and 3 p.m.

ICAT 2007, Esbjerg, Denmark,
28. - 30.11.2007: Annual Conference on Artificial Reality and Telexistence

BCI 2000 workshop, Rome, Italy,
5. – 6.12.2007

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