Athenea: Augmented cognition by integrating AI and neurotechnologies

ATHENEA is founded on the growing need to converge advanced technologies that enhance human cognitive capabilities. In an increasingly complex and digitized world, augmented cognition presents itself as an innovative solution to address challenges in diverse sectors, from healthcare to industry and education.

Cognitive sciences and Artificial Intelligence have a close and long-standing relationship that is giving rise to a new paradigm: augmentedcognition. This is the enhancement of human cognitive capabilities through the integration of AI systems and advanced human-machine interface (HMI) technologies.

With this technology, in addition to detecting patterns and extracting information in real time by facilitating accurate and natural interactions between the human brain and computational systems, it aids decision making that complements and enhances human cognitive processes by providing relevant contextual information, identifying patterns and suggesting optimal decisions in real time.

It is in this context in and with the integration of advanced technologies where ATHENEA is born, being a unique highly specialized functional unit, which in addition to maximizing the laboratory's capacity to carry out research in neurotechnologies, allows addressing complex projects that require a multidisciplinary approach. It allows the study and optimization of simultaneous interactions between multiple people and machines, making it a pioneering infrastructure in Asturias in the field of augmented cognition applied to human-machine collaborative work environments.

Components that ATHENEA integrates:

• Information capture module: non-invasive Brain-Computer Interfaces (BCI) sensorics, eye-tracking systems and high-precision gesture recognition, real-time neural signal processing systems...
• Interaction module: extended reality (XR) systems, collaborative robotics system for physical interaction tests.
  ATHENEA is a "portable" infrastructure which confers flexibility to the research and its transfer to different populations and business and cultural contexts.

This infrastructure is located in the CTIC laboratory in Gijón, although it is a "portable" infrastructure which confers flexibility to the research and its transfer to different populations and business and cultural contexts.