Brain-Operated Typewriter using the Language Prediction Model

Abstract

A brain-computer interface (BCI) is a communication system that translates brain activity into commands for computers or other devices. In other words, BCIs create a new communication channel between the brain and an output device by bypassing conventional motor output pathways consisting of nerves and muscles. This is particularly useful for facilitating communication for people suffering from paralysis. Due to the low bit rate, it takes much more time to translate brain activity into commands. Especially it takes much time to input characters by using BCI-based typewriters. In this paper, we propose a brain-operated typewriter which is accelerated by a language prediction model. The proposed system uses three kinds of strategies to improve the entry speed: word completion, next-syllable prediction, and next word prediction. We found that the entry speed of BCI-based typewriter improved about twice as much through our demonstration which utilized the language prediction model.