Honda Robot Controlled By Brain Waves

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."

Comments

I for one . . .

[cashman73]

I for one welcome our new mind-reading overlords!

At least they aren't thinking for themselves...

[FrontalLobe]

On the other hand... I'm sure AI would be more peaceful than some that would get their hands on the technology

Re:At least they aren't thinking for themselves...

[eln]

My God, you're right! With this technology, someone could poke both of your eyes at once. We must invent a robotic hand we can put up against our noses to block this weapon immediately.

finally!

[dwarfling]

guess vulcan trekkies have robo friends ;)

Where's Mitchell Gant when you need him?

[Tackhead]

"I must think in... Japanese?!?!"

Re:Where's Mitchell Gant when you need him?

[KDR_11k]

Apparently you have to learn German if you want to become a doctor in Japan.

Unfortunately...

[GillBates0]

...further trials resulted in the robotic hand trying to touch itself every other minute and repeatly making lewd gestures with it's middle finger.

It's good to see they're making progress

[something_wicked_thi]

A while back, I remember reading that someone had invented a video game that was controlled similarly, but it took a while to train yourself to "think" properly. Having the robot mirror your own movement sounds far superior. If this continues to develop, I have some hope of never developing carpal tunnel syndrome.

With mind-reading robots available

[Anonymous Coward]

...can a Stephen Hawking Transformer be far behind?

With this technology

[donglekey]

I could steal old people's medicine

Also found in the news:

[EmperorKagato]

Venture Capitalists fund $300 billion dollars into a project presented by an organization called NERV.

I've always thought...

[Temujin_12]

...that it was only a matter of time until we started to see brain-to-machine mappings for communication. The possibilities are very exciting (coding with your brain anyone?). What scares me is when efforts are taken to have machine-to-brain communication. Call me crazy, but I prefer my own synapses to be the only source of thought in my brain. I don't even want to begin to think what it could happen when the machine segfaults (or gets hacked into) while injecting thoughts into my brain.

Ask and ye shall receive

[spun]

Here ya go.

Is it just me...

[llvllatrix]

...or did that have giant fighting robots written all over it?

universality?

[Red Flayer]

So, does the MRI interpreting algorithm need to be tailored to each user, or could an 'off-the-shelf' interpreter work for anyone?

While I'm sure that bloodflow signatures for physical movements are similar between individuals, is there too much variability to prevent false recognition of a 'signal'?

Any neurobiologists out there care to help out?

Re:universality?

[venicebeach]

So, does the MRI interpreting algorithm need to be tailored to each user, or could an 'off-the-shelf' interpreter work for anyone? While I'm sure that bloodflow signatures for physical movements are similar between individuals, is there too much variability to prevent false recognition of a 'signal'?

At this point, it is surprising that they can even do it for an individual (discerning among these three quite similar hand movements). I am kind of skeptical myself. There is a lot of variability in fMRI signal even within an individual. I would guess the system is trained on a specific individual.

Between individuals you have additional sources of variability; for example, the foldings of the cortex are quite different from person to person. I personally have a very unusual precentral gyrus on the left side. Activity maps are typically aligned to anatomical maps so finding correspondences between individuals has to deal with the challenges of anatomical variability.

For gross things, it can be quite obvious what the person is doing. I can tell by looking at the activations in your brain if you are looking at something versus hearing something. But looking at a duck versus looking at a cow? Much harder. Making a V-sign versus making a fist? I've never seen a paper where someone reported being able to do this. It is theoretically possible, but difficult with a blurry MRI signal that aggregates over populations of neurons. You can certainly do it if you implant electrodes into the brain. Recordings from monkey premotor cortex, for example, find neurons that fire when specific movements are made.

Re:universality?

[Chabil Ha']

It's not just the robot being able to interpret your brain waves, but your brain also adjusting to new interface as well. Take for example babies: they often don't have much control of their appendages, not just because of underdeveloped muscles, but the pathways to fine motor control have to be developed as well.

This is also demonstrated to learning to use a joystick or gamepad. Anyone new to a different kind of interface needs to make certain adjustments and brain motor connections to accommodate a new way of manipulating things. I am quite adept at FSP games on the PC, for example, but when I started playing Halo on X-Box, I was running around like a drunken sailor. Overtime, however, my hand and mind became quite accustomed to manipulating the movements on the screen. So would it be with your mind controlling the robot.

Re:universality?

[FleaPlus]

For gross things, it can be quite obvious what the person is doing. I can tell by looking at the activations in your brain if you are looking at something versus hearing something. But looking at a duck versus looking at a cow? Much harder. Making a V-sign versus making a fist? I've never seen a paper where someone reported being able to do this. It is theoretically possible, but difficult with a blurry MRI signal that aggregates over populations of neurons.

I think this research is a follow-up to a study Kamitani & Tong published last year in Nature Neuroscience, where they decoded the orientation of edges a subject was looking at. Here's the abstract:

Decoding the visual and subjective contents of the human brain

The potential for human neuroimaging to read out the detailed contents of a person's mental state has yet to be fully explored. We investigated whether the perception of edge orientation, a fundamental visual feature, can be decoded from human brain activity measured with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Using statistical algorithms to classify brain states, we found that ensemble fMRI signals in early visual areas could reliably predict on individual trials which of eight stimulus orientations the subject was seeing. Moreover, when subjects had to attend to one of two overlapping orthogonal gratings, feature-based attention strongly biased ensemble activity toward the attended orientation. These results demonstrate that fMRI activity patterns in early visual areas, including primary visual cortex (V1), contain detailed orientation information that can reliably predict subjective perception. Our approach provides a framework for the readout of fine-tuned representations in the human brain and their subjective contents.

hmmmm

[venicebeach]

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.

Mind Reader

[tgpo]

I really don't want a Robot acting out what's in my head. The mixture of honey, custard, cucumbers, and Captain Cruch cereal is deadly on robotic moving parts....just trust me on this one.

like the monkey stuff from a few years ago

[kaan]

About 3 years ago, some scientists hooked up a chimpanzee and captured brain signals to control a robotic arm. Their results were quite a bit more impressive I think, because the robotic arm had full motion control, and was physically located several hundred miles away from the chimp. But still, this stuff from Honda is cool, because it's controlled by humans using mri, not wires plugged into your brain like the monkey stuff. I just hope they don't try to put brain controller stuff in their vehicles...

Here's an article from New Scientist:
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn4262

It's probably just latency

[PIPBoy3000]

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.

New meaning to telecommuting

[psyklopz]

Imagine a world where you can go hook yourself into a robotic control chamber and somewhere on the other side of the world, your robotic counterpart begins to walk around, talk, do things, all based on your brainwaves.

Meanwhile, video from teh robot's 'eye' are transmitted to a 3d viewer in front of your face.

Forget star-rek transporters. Thisi s the next best (and plausible) thing.

Very bad implications for crime and terrorism, though.

More Links

[vertinox]

As per the discussion on Digg here is a video of the robot in action with the MRI:

http://www.newlaunches.com/archives/honda_develops _bmi_robot_hand.php

And all the other links that were related:

http://www.engadget.com/2006/05/24/hondas-asimo-ge ts-mind-control-interface/

http://www.japancorp.net/Article.Asp?Art_ID=12565

The Japancorp has the most information than both the engadget and then Yahoo.

I know what they are all thinking

[sentientbrendan]

GIANT FIGHTING ROBOTS

Seriously, why else has Japan dumped all this money into robotics and AI over the past 30 years? It's because everyone there grew up on Gigantor http://www.gigantor.org/ and Gundom, that's why. They are going to make giant fighting robots if it kills them.

Really though, this is all just trying to fill a void after the death of Godzilla in the late 60's. Substituting one giant stompy thing for another.

If you want to learn more about the life and times of gozilla and natures other lovable giant scamps, then I suggest you check out "Godzilla, Mothra, and King Ghidorah - Gaint Monster All Out Attack an A&E biography."

My kids couldn't ever use it.

[CFD339]

They clearly don't have enough organized brainwaves to run the lawn mower.

Kidding aside, I understand that during adolescence the brain completely reorganizes higher functions -- often shifting the center or processing for many of them to entirely different places.

Exactly how would this ASIMO++ handle that?

Oh, and what about blondes?

So, here's the technical question...

[caudron]

...is it still called "masturbation" if the robot is the one doing it to you?

Tom Caudron
http://tom.digitalelite.com/

P.S. I look forward to 15 years from now when my daughter reads this comment after searching on my name. What a proud moment in my history to share with future generations. :(

Re:Who has a billion dollars?

[SeaFox]

No, the catch is you have to have a brain. That should lower the uptake on this thing.