Our collaborative research team, consisting of Dr. Payam Heydari (UCI EECS), Dr. Zoran Nenadic (UCI BME), Dr. Charles Liu, MD, PHD (Rancho Los Amigos National Rehabilitation Center, Neurosurgery), and myself, have just been awarded a multi-PI grant from the National Science Foundation to initiate the initial steps of development of a fully implantable brain-computer interface system. The $1 million research grant will be used to support our research efforts over the next 4 years, with the goal to develop a benchtop version of a fully implantable BCI, capable of acquiring electrocorticogram signals and analyzing them internally to enable direct brain control of a robotic gait exoskeleton (RGE) for walking.