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Honda Robot Controlled By Brain Waves

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the my-cybernetic-army-thanks-you-in-advance dept.

Dotnaught writes "Honda researchers to have developed a way to control robots using human brain waves. Using brain signals read from a person in a magnetic resonance imaging scanner, a robotic hand mirrored the movement of the human controller, spreading its fingers and making a 'V' sign."

3 of 137 comments (clear)

  1. Ask and ye shall receive by spun · · Score: 4, Informative

    Here ya go.

    --
    - None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
  2. hmmmm by venicebeach · · Score: 4, Informative

    I've done some fMRI of motor movements... All these movements, the fist, the V-sign, would activate the hand area, premotor cortex, and some parietal areas... I am very skeptical that you could tell the difference between them. But if they can that is very impressive, especially to do it in real time...

    By the way, MRI does not measure "brain waves". It measures blood oxygenation changes, which are related to the firing of neurons.

  3. It's probably just latency by PIPBoy3000 · · Score: 3, Informative
    You have to remember how MRI's work:
    It has been known for over 100 years (Roy and Sherrington 1890) that changes in blood flow and blood oxygenation in the brain (collectively known as hemodynamics) are closely linked to neural activity. When nerve cells are active they consume oxygen carried by hemoglobin in red blood cells from local capillaries. The local response to this oxygen utilisation is an increase in blood flow to regions of increased neural activity, occurring after a delay of approximately 1-5 seconds.
    Add in some computing time to process the image and you've got your latency right there.