How It Works
The
hands-free access solution includes Brainfingers Hardware and Brainfingers
Software. The hardware consists of a headband, interface box and connecting
cables. The Brainfingers Software includes training software and universal
software access.
The headband senses and responds to surface electrical signals generated from muscle, eye movement, and brainwave activity detected at your forehead. Three sensors mounted inside the headband are used to detect the forehead signal.. The headband connects to the interface box which filters, amplifies and digitizes your forehead signal.
The interface box connects to your computer through a serial or USB port, The Brainfingers Software further amplifies your forehead signal and uses patented algorithms to decode your forehead signal into separate frequency bands or channels of information. Each channel or band becomes a virtual finger or Brainfinger. The total amplification of the resulting Brainfingers is over two million. In this way your Brainfingers become responsive to the subtlest of facial muscle, eye and brainwave activity. The software computes a total of eleven Brainfingers. These eleven Brainfingers span the controllable frequency range of your forehead signal. The three lowest Brainfingers are responsive to your lateral eye movements. The next three Brainfingers are responsive to alpha brainwaves. The next four Brainfingers are responsive to beta brainwaves and the highest Brainwave is responsive to your facial muscle activity.
The software includes a number of training windows designed to help you learn to bring your Brainfingers under conscious control. Included with the training windows are help windows and adjustment windows to help you find how to control your Brainfingers. Once control is mastered you use a launch window to first build links between your Brainfingers and computer events needed to control third party software. You use these links to provide universal access, allowing you to control most 3rd party software.
If for example you had ALS/MND and you could only control your jaw muscle, you could use the 11th Brainfinger as a switch to control an on-screen keyboard such as Words+ Ezkeys in a switch-scanning mode.
Brainfingers are used to control the up-and-down and the left-and-right
movements of the mouse cursor; affect visual and musical biofeedback displays,
and can be user-formatted to control mouse button and keyboard commands.
Eye movements and facial gestures can be separately “mapped”
(or recognized) to control user-formatted mouse keyboard functions and
software commands. Individual control formats and adjustments are then
easily made by using the user-friendly graphical interface.
We provide the link Technical Details if you want a more in-depth discussion of the technical aspects of the Brainfingers Solution. We provide the link Brainfingers Software for those who want a more detailed discussion of the software.