Andrew Pethick

Because I am going to turn this into a published article I have taken a bulk of the article down I have left part of the abstract and conclusion for the interest of people.

Please see the videos at the end to see it in action. If you have any questions please contact me in the email in the footer of this page.

 
The Main Experiment: Can you use this to control geophysical software?
Proof of Concept BCI Electromagnetic Computing Case Study
Brain computer interface (BCI) systems are beginning to emerge as one of the most breakthrough technologies of the 21st century. As is the case with other developing technologies, proof of concept must be demonstrated before advanced methods are pursued. This article presents the first published case study of a brain controlled geophysical software package. Our results show that processed brainwaves from the NeuroSky MindWave electroencephalography (EEG) device can be used to control various geophysical survey parameters with an acceptable degree of accuracy and to model the corresponding data in real-time.

 
Conclusion
The results show that it is possible to control geophysical software using a BCI system..... the experiment did show some level of connection between thought level and the effect on parameter variation. The emerging field of BCI systems has many hurdles to clear before reaching functionality but we hope this pioneering proof of concept experiment demonstrates the feasibility of future brain computing applications in geophysics.

Final Word

Who cares about efficacy. Like everyone else I have decided to define success as line honours and as a result the

FIRST BRAIN CONTROLLED GEOPHYSICAL SOFTWARE IN THE WORLD WAS CREATED!***

***I have not included in my assessment possible "Skunkworks research projects" which may or may not exist in the basements of Schlumberger, Shell, BP [...]

I have tried some highlyexperimental programming as part of my PhD. As you may have figured out I am not just into Geophysics and MCSEM but I am also into human computer interactions.

The main reason I am into this area is that I HATE COMPUTERS. I won't get into too many explanations but I find that they perform poorly at communicating information. This is why I spend too much time on my interface rather than my actual software's innards.

First of all I found this device, the Neurosky Mindwave, and thought it was pretty cool. I have heard that UWA and Woodside and others were trialing these things out to understand the seismic/gravity/magnetic interpretation process so having to myself sounded awesome. It is actually meant as a toy, but it seemed like a pretty decent EEG. So as a hobbyist I had fun trialing out the 'toy's' potential. So after some time tinkering with drivers a few experiments were performed.

1. What is my brain pattern when I work?

2. Whoah, that first experiment was cool. Can you use this to detect liars?

3. Now those experiments were successful I wan't to claim my name to something. Lets make the first brain controlled interface system connected to a geophysical software package. Just for kicks.

 
Experiment 1 : What is my Working Pattern?
Hypothesis

No real hypothesis. I knew how I worked but it was good to see it in the data.

Method

I wrote my own logging program in java using the JNI code that came with the device which connected to the C drivers.
I actually did an experiment covering 8 hours of continuous work (coding).
This collected in excess of 24mb of raw data.
Each recording is computed around 1 second. The program recorded time [...]