The Eye Tribe

Hi

This is my first post on the community forums. I have been a BCI researcher for many years and the Emotiv EPOC works flawlessly "out of the box". However, I recently started a new research project, which aims to implement the EPOC with a commercially available eye tracker (the Eye Tribe tracker) as collaborative input modalities. The idea is to provide a hybrid assistive technology for clients that suffer from neuronal dysfunction and similar afflictions.

My problem is that when I connect both devices to the same computer at the same time, the EPOC ceases to communicate with the application suites (TestBench etc.) If I remove the eye tracker it begins to communicate again. Does anyone know why this is the case?

The EyeTribe tracker connects via USB and opens a TCP port at 6555 whereas the Emotive EPOC connect via Bluetooth 4.0 and connects at port 1024 (at least this is the case for the OpenVibe acquisition server).

Any help would be greatly appreciated... even if it only points me in the right direction.

Thanks in advance

Chris

collaborative input modalities

I’ve heard about the Emotiv.

While it may not be futuristic or flexible like most people envision, just a few basic commands that are paired up with other inputs, like eye-tracking, would be useful.

E.g. of some adequate, basic commands:

* 1) open menu of on-screen shortcuts
* 2) select-what-I’m-looking-at (using eye tracker)
* 3) no/back/cancel

What Emotiv offers:

> “In order to provide consistency and a simple range of possible actions, each user profile will contain space for training data for up to 15 different commands, which are internally labelled COMMAND1 to COMMAND15.
> Each COMMAND slot will store a LABEL (for example, PUSH, DISAPPEAR, FIRE or WIND) and a link to a custom animation which can be executed.
>
> Emotiv Insight Control Center will support animations for PUSH, PULL, LIFT, DROP, LEFT, RIGHT, ROTATE LEFT, ROTATE RIGHT, ROTATE FORWARDS, ROTATE BACKWARDS, ROTATE CLOCKWISE, ROTATE ANTICLOCKWISE, DISAPPEAR however Developers will be able to freely define their own Commands for each application.”

With an eye tracker, you probably don’t need that many brain commands if you’re just going to be using the mind for a “Yes,-select-what-I.m-looking-at” or “back” for on-screen, virtual buttons.

Hi Chris,

Don't have the Epoc so I can't validate but it sounds like a conflict on the network layer. You could try to reconfigure the TET Server to run on a different port. Does it matter which software you start first?

Jeff, interesting concept. Some of the tribe has done work on gaze + BCI in the past, think it was the NIA from OCZ.

Hi

Thanks for the timely responses.

@JeffKang - We have developed a program in Java that receives input from the Eye Tribe Tracker and provides four-way directional control of a menu system, allowing us to interact with the smart environment. The problem is we are currently experiencing a rate of false positives, which decreases the accuracy and reliability of the system. This is especially true when a user pauses to read or think. The system will continue to make a selection based on their gaze even though it is unintended. So, we completely agree with your rationale - by combining the Emotiv EPOC with eye tracking we can use the BCI as a simple "switch" to reinforce decisions (a single brain command). It is unfortunate that both devices do not work simultaneously, as this approach has the potential to very useful indeed.

@Martin - It doesn't matter what software we start first or which USB port we use, the problem still persists. But at least it is not intermittent and we can rectify it each time. We have also tried different operating systems (Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 - we will try OS X and Linux next week). I agree that it may be a conflict on the network layer or even a problem with the USB host.

I am going to continue to investigate this issue further and I will keep the community posted, but if anyone has a solution please let me know... it would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

Chris

Just an update:

This error is specific to Windows environments - There seems to be no issues in OS X.

Workaround for Windows:

To temporarily fix this issue on Windows, you need to connect both devices and replicate the error. Once the Emotiv EPOC has crashed (stopped sending data), you must move the Emotiv connection dongle to a different USB port. This will allow both devices to communicate simultaneously.

Chris

Good to know. Thanks Chris.