Researchers Unveil A Thought-Controlled Drone

[steve2470]

8 days old but I thought this was worth posting about.

http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2013-06/thought-controlled-drone-exists-and-everything-you-need-know-about-it?google_editors_picks=true

Researchers at the University of Minnesota today revealed a drone that can be controlled merely by thought, and that's not even the coolest thing about it. Published in the Journal of Neuro Engineering, the project has implications in everything from unmanned vehicles to paraplegic mobility.

The setup here is pretty basic, futuristic though it seems. The drone is a commercially available four-blade helicopter--the Parrot AR quadrotor--which is basically a drone hobbyist's Model T. To control it, the "pilot" wears a funny hat, the sensing end of an electroencephalogram (EEG). EEGs place an array of electrodes over a person's head, in a totally non-invasive way, then pick up on electrical activity in the brain. Clusters of activity, like thinking about making a fist with a right hand, generates a spark in a specific area of the brain. That spark gets translated through a computer into a quadrotor command ("turn right&quot . The command is then beamed to the quadrotor via WiFi.

Ideally, it works like in the image below:



Previously, researchers showed that subjects could control a virtual helicopter with their thoughts. The latest demo--using a real, live helicopter--is just another step toward more practical applications, with the ultimate goal being to help people with disabilities and neurdegenerative dieseases regain mobility, says researcher Bin He, a professor of biomedicial engineering at the University of Michigan.

[Buzz Clik]

1. It spends 50% of its time staring clumsily at women's chests.