A substantial minority of people experience neuromuscular disorders that limit their ability to control muscle movement. In some cases, an affected individual may be unable to communicate by any conventional means, such as by speaking, writing, or signing.

The Brain-Computer Interface Group of the Language Engineering Laboratory at CUHK is developing brain-computer interfaces, or BCIs, that will allow such individuals to input Chinese text into a computer by measuring their brain activity.

We have recently demonstrated a prototype of one of our BCI systems, the Chinese Ring Speller (CRiSp), at a public exhibition held by the Office of the Government Chief Information Officer at the Hong Kong Central Library, May 11-14, 2012. Click here to view press releases about our work.

CRiSp comprises an electroencephalograph (EEG) with which to monitor the user's brain activity and a notebook computer on which to run the CRiSp system software. The CRiSp software has been developed and tested on Windows 7, but is expected to run on Windows XP and all later versions of the Windows operating system. The software and instructions for setting up CRiSp are now available for free download here.