Context-Awareness as an Enhancement of Brain-Computer Interfaces

Ambient intelligence has acquired a relevant presence in assistive technologies. Context-awareness, the ability to perceive situations and to act providing suitable responses, plays a key role in such presence. BrainAble, an ongoing European project, aims at raising the autonomy of people with functional diversity, facilitating and enhancing the interaction with their environment. Brain-computer interfaces are applied as communication means to allow users to perform actions by using their electroencephalogram signals. Multiple approaches are studied and combined in order to provide the best set of brain signals which specifies a concrete event or action. In this setting, we propose the application of context-awareness to extend the traditional proactive and pervasive nature of ambient intelligence in a way which enhances the braincomputer interface. One practical example is the dynamic personalization of available options in the user interface, based on user’s current context.