Those of us who watched Avatar would definitely be able to identify with the kind of technology seen in the movie, especially when a disabled human is able to plug in into an alien body, controlling it remotely via the power of mind. Researchers over at the CRNS-AIST Joint Robotics Laboratory have come across something which is somewhat similar, where they intend humans to one day control robots using the power of thought alone.
The research group said, “Basically we would like to create devices which would allow people to feel embodied, in the body of a humanoid robot. To do so we are trying to develop techniques from Brain Computer Interfaces (BCI) so that we can read the peoples thoughts and then try to see how far we can go from interpreting brain waves signals, to transform them into actions to be done by the robot.”
Sporting an interface that relies on flashing symbols to control just where the robot is able to move, as well as how it interacts with the environment around it, you wear a cap that comes embedded with electrodes in all the right places, and the relevant electric activities of the brain are read, being translated by the PC it is hooked up to via a signal processing unit that will then relay the necessary action or response to the robot – whether near or far away. Telepresence, anyone?
Filed in . Read more about Robot.