Document Type
Student Presentation
Presentation Date
12-1-2020
Faculty Mentor
Dr. Liljana Babinkostova, Dr. Marion Scheepers, and Dr. Edoardo Serra
Abstract
Brain-Computer Interfaces (BCIs) have historically provided many uses in the medical field, including mobility for individuals with differing levels of paralysis. Present day research is focused around testing the efficacy of such devices on mental diseases such as Alzheimer's, Dementia, and Parkinson's. Leading companies that are spearheading the research of such devices, are looking at BCI's as a tool for solving many of the problems that these diseases produce, with the end goal of generalizing BCIs to appeal to the healthy layperson by providing an additional interface between them and the technological world. If such devices were present in society and were an integral agent in day-to-day activities, uses for biometric authentication with other systems would be an obvious avenue for such implanted devices to take. This research is focused around the use of eye blinking as a possible source of biometric authentication and whether a neural network specifically trained for the individual would be able to accurately and consistently determine a Morse-code encoded password from the user with an implant. Our testing was done via an EEG with 4 electrode channels placed at strategic locations among the subjects scalp in order to detect the blinking both proximally and distally.