A mind-controlled robot?! Yes, its true! Researchers at the Joint Robotics Labratory has created a robot that is controlled by brainwaves. I must say, the video is fascinating. It is still in the very early stages of development, but I can see this product going far. Essentially, it is controlled by a system called BCI (or brain computer interface). There are a series of arrows that the user focuses on while wearing a cap that reads brainwaves. When the user looks to the left arrow for example, the robot then moves to the left. The robot can move forward, pick up objects, etc. Here is a quote from the article describing the exact process,
“He is wearing a cap which is embedded with electrodes, and then we read the electric activities of the brain that are transferred to this PC, and then there is a signal processing unit which classifies what the user is thinking, and then as you see here there are several icons that can be associated with tasks or you can recognize an object that will flicker automatically, and with different frequencies we can recognize which frequency the user is focussing their attention on and then we can select this object and since the object is associated with a task then it’s easy to instruct the robot which task it has to perform.”
This process could potentially assist individuals who have struggled with paralysis or spinal cord injuries. I forsee this being extremely helpful technology in the future. What do you think?
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