Human-Robot Cooperation via Brain ComputerInterface in Assistive Scenario

In the last years, the development of robots for assisting and collaborating with peo-ple has experienced a large growth. Applications for assistive robots include hospitalservice robots, factory intelligent assistants and personal homecare robots. Workingin shared environments with human beings, these robots have frequent need of aneffective human-robot cooperation. This work introduces a possible approach forperforming human-robot cooperation, namely recognition of a user selected objectby means of Brain Computer Interface (BCI), followed by pick and place of thesame object via a robotic arm. The object selection is achieved using a BCI thatallows to choose one among different objects of common use, by interpreting theP300 signals generated in the brain when the image of the object desidered by theuser appears on a computer screen. Then, the robot recognizes through a classifierif the selected object is within its workspace, grasps the object and moves it intoa different position. This system could support people with limited motor skills orparalysis, playing an important role in structured assistive environments in a near future.