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Making Joysticks Obsolete
Alien54 writes "NASA has been taking a beating about their in ability to get the really important things done. ABCNEWS has a story that reveals exactly what they have been working on: Computer control of things like joystick interfaces and keyboards by reading the muscles directly. No more joysticks or keyboards. Just gestures to control, say, an aircraft. A more advanced gaming interface indeed! There is also a short video showing the current state of the art." Imagine what this device could do for the por-- I mean, gaming industry.
As someone who works with a related technology (Brain Actuated Technology), I wanted to address some of the concerns I've seen a few people raise. Before I get too deeply into the discussion, I'll refer you to a previous reponse I made to the "Surfing The Net With Brainwaves?" article. If you are curious to see what I have said already about the subject, check it out.
I'm a software engineer that works with a device called a Cyberlink that allows you to control the mouse cursor (and other peripherals) using a combination of Brain/Body signals (EEG, EMG & EOG).
From the electrode arrangement in the NASA picture I saw, it looks like they using EMG (electromyograph) signals to detect discreet electrical impulses for specific muscles. There is a lot of electrical energy involved in actuating the muscles in your body, the hard part is figuring which muscle signals of the multitudes are the ones you care about.
One of the most difficult aspects of these types of technologies is resolving a "rest state". Energy is expended even when you are trying to hold a bodypart, like your arm, still. If the movement of a joystick/mouse/wheel was mapped directly electrical activity in your arm, wrists and hands you would have to worry about keeping them stationary to begin with so you wouldn't generate interference (and cause the device to move left when you wish it to stay where it is). Electrically, we are very noisy...
If you aren't concentrating, it may cause control to "drift". For example, if I move the mouse around with my hand and I let go, the mouse cursor usually will remain exactly where you left it on the screen. But with devices that use raw biosignals, it is hard to "turn-off" electrical signals present in your body so that the device interpreting them will stop reacting to them. When I use the brain actuated mouse interface with the Cyberlink, its kinda hard to keep the mouse from NOT moving. Sure, I can move it up/down/left/right when I want to, but when I don't want it to move, it is hard to prevent it from "drifting" slightly in some direction. These are aspects of the technology I am working on fixing. As such, I am intimately familiar with most of the difficulties involved.
In the case of picking up impulses meant for your hands and arm, it becomes even harder because we use our hands all the time for other tasks.
But the good news is that these things can be tuned. There are ways around these limitations and work is being done to resolve these issues. I suffer from tendonitis in my wrists, so *I* at least have a very vested interest in making this technology work. :) This technology is tremendously useful for people with physical disabilities and there is work being done to make the technology more appealing to able-bodied persons as well. Your concerns are duly noted. (by me, at least).
If you have additional questions or concerns for someone who is familiar with this technology, feel free to drop me an email and I will do what I can to answer your questions. :)
Mmm, brain-controlled railguns... ;P
PS: An interesting side-note is that it seems to take around 100 milliseconds (1/10 of a second) for a signal to be sent from your brain to get to your index finger and trigger movement *click*. By using a reflex tester (http://www.reflexgame.com/) the quickest I can seem to consistantly react to the screen changing color and click 'stop' seems to be 0.33 seconds. While using the Cyberlink (with electrodes on my forehead) I am able to consistantly react in only 0.22 seconds. So, my reaction time is about 1/10 of a second faster if I don't have to wait for the signal to travel all the way down to my finger. I'm already pretty dangerous in games like Unreal and Quake, but now I can fire that much faster. It is, however, a very odd feeling. You fire faster than you are expecting to. Its surprising. I keep thinking "Whoa, I fired already?" Eventually, we'll all be able to be LPBs of a different variety. ;P
Cheers,
Michael