In the recent decade, electroencephalography (EEG)-enabled brain-computer-interface (BCI) has seen a rapid growth in related patent grants and marketplace. Currently, EEG is the best option utilized as a signal source for BCI in non-patient applications, because it is not invasive and does not require any surgery to setup/remove, while providing good enough signal resolution to generate reliable control signals to external systems. Such mind-controlled systems, if widely adopted, will change the essential aspects of people’s interaction with and via electronic devices.

The current marketplace, however, has yet to witness any significant popularity of such systems, even some of which have been there for years. It seems that other than the labs using these systems for neuroscience research, individual’s purchase for personal use is limited. Part of the cause can be attributed to the fact that consumers are not given enough incentive to purchase these systems, which limits the motivation for application developers, further hindering the growth of the market, and delaying the advent of a “killer app” that would promote massive popularity with media hype. That is to say, if the consumers are given enough incentive to acquire these EEG systems, a larger potential market will emerge, with more funding flowing in to support both the application development and the scientific research.

Right now, many EEG-based technology companies keep coming up with more apps and cooler physical looks for their systems. However, before people go for fancy- shaped, sci-fi looking headgears, they need to make sure they would feel comfortable wearing them in various social settings; since currently the EEG cap has not become as popular as glasses and headphones, it means the EEG cap should remain low-profile until the younger sci-fi population starts taking over the world.

The problem, thus, is that currently there is not really any “low-profile” EEG cap on the market. While many engineering students might prefer these cool-looking headsets, other people will need subtler version to hide their affection of technologies. Here then comes the need, which is to design and build a low-profile EEG cap for consumers’ daily uses in public space, with the hope of eventually turning those cool EEG systems from distinctive, research limitedequipment into fashionable headgears