Electroencephalography (EEG), electromyography (EMG) and eye-tracking for astronaut training and space exploration

TL;DR

This paper reviews EEG, EMG, and eye-tracking technologies for astronaut training and space exploration, highlighting their potential for monitoring cognitive and physical states, and discussing their readiness and challenges for space missions.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive analysis of the strengths, challenges, and applicability of EEG, EMG, and eye-tracking technologies in the context of human spaceflight and astronaut monitoring.

Findings

EEG, EMG, and eye-tracking can monitor cognitive states like attention and fatigue.

These technologies have potential for assessing astronaut physical and mental health.

A timeline of technological readiness for space applications is presented.

Abstract

The ongoing push to send humans back to the Moon and to Mars is giving rise to a wide range of novel technical solutions in support of prospective astronaut expeditions. Against this backdrop, the European Space Agency (ESA) has recently launched an investigation into unobtrusive interface technologies as a potential answer to such challenges. Three particular technologies have shown promise in this regard: EEG-based brain-computer interfaces (BCI) provide a non-invasive method of utilizing recorded electrical activity of a user's brain, electromyography (EMG) enables monitoring of electrical signals generated by the user's muscle contractions, and finally, eye tracking enables, for instance, the tracking of user's gaze direction via camera recordings to convey commands. Beyond simply improving the usability of prospective technical solutions, our findings indicate that EMG, EEG, and eye-tracking could also serve to monitor and assess a variety of cognitive states, including attention, cognitive load, and mental fatigue of the user, while EMG could furthermore also be utilized to monitor the physical state of the astronaut. In this paper, we elaborate on the key strengths and challenges of these three enabling technologies, and in light of ESA's latest findings, we reflect on their applicability in the context of human space flight. Furthermore, a timeline of technological readiness is provided. In so doing, this paper feeds into the growing discourse on emerging technology and its role in paving the way for a human return to the Moon and expeditions beyond the Earth's orbit.