CogniGame is a reinterpretation of a well-known video game from the 1970s. The difference is that the action now takes place on a real playing field: with two players, a ball and two bats, each mounted on a linear axis along the baseline. The bat can be moved along the line to the left or right to deflect the ball and keep it in play. One player moves their bat with a joystick, and the other player controls their linear axis solely by thought power via the brain–computer interface (BCI).
As the next generation of human–technology interfaces, the brain–computer interface could also be used in industrial environments in the future. That is why we are testing this new operating concept with CogniGame. The importance of human–machine interaction is also growing in the field of production.
Despite the increasing complexity of the system concepts, the interfaces between user and hardware need to become ever simpler. This calls for new operating concepts that give people faster, more direct and simpler ways of communicating with technology: from joystick solutions to voice input and, in the future perhaps, even the control of partial processes by thought.