Thought Controlled Robot Experiment

Wednesday, January 16, 2008

Scientists led by Miguel Nicolelis of Duke University have managed to control a robot by thought - and those thoughts were transmitted over the internet! For this experiments the thoughts were only those of a monkey walking on a treadmill, but it's a good start.

The research was a joint experiment between scientists in the US and Japan. A monkey in the US was trained to walk a treadmill and a chip implanted in its head recorded its brain activity. This signal was digitized and transmitted over the net to Japan, where it was used to control the movements of a robot. Video of the robot was then sent back to the US to complete the feedback loop.

This technology could ultimately lead to thought controlled artficial limbs, exoskletons or even remote robots for dangerous situations.

Labels: robots, science and technology