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Monkey's Thoughts Make Robot Walk

Posted by samzenpus on from the surrender-now dept.

geekbits writes "For all those who have at one time or another been too lazy to get up off the couch and go to the fridge and get a beer, heat up some pizza, or change the channel when the remote is missing, we may be one step closer to being able to keep our tushes parked just a little while longer. There may also be some slightly more noble implications here. According to an article in The New York Times, in an experiment at Duke University, a 12-pound, 32-inch monkey made a 200-pound, 5-foot humanoid robot walk on a treadmill using only her brain activity. She was in North Carolina, and the robot was in Japan."

9 of 146 comments (clear)

  1. monkey business by seanadams.com · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Being able to read the monkey's brain sounds like the only innovation here, not making the robot walk. Reading between the lines, it doesn't sound like the monkey is really controlling the robot in any real sense at all.

    Several things make me question that. One, why is the robot in north Carolina and the monkey in Japan? It's just for show. Nothing of scientific significance is being demonstrated by that. We all know that internet can connect two gizmos across large distances. The experiment could have been conducted much more simply at one location and made no less effective a point (except to clueless investors maybe).

    Secondly, because of the distance, there is a significant delay (TFA says 250ms, about what I might have guessed.) This would seem to preclude the monkey being able to control the robots actuators in any direct sense. I.e. lift thigh, swing lower leg forward, position foot, lower thigh, positioning body over front leg. Walking is a "controlled fall". No way you could issue all those commands 250ms ahead of seeing or feeling their effect. You'd trip and fall.

    So, what is the monkey really doing? I doubt if he is even thinking "left, right, left, right" because even that would be hard to coordinate with so much lag.

    Finally, why is there a damn robot in the first place? Wouldn't it be much easier to have the commands control a computer animation? You could do that in such a way that the model would look much more interesting to the monkey... it could look like another monkey, a giant walking banana, whatever.

    My guess is that they are simply getting a binary command value from the monkey: "walk" or "don't walk". And the whole robot thing is just for effect. I hate to be such a cynic but this looks like showmanship, not science. If that is the case then this is equivalent to the simple video games that have been demonstrated using brain control.

    However, I could certainly imagine that the journalist totally failed to understand the experiment and maybe something important was lost in his explanation of it.

    1. Re:monkey business by Reivec · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I think the distance is easy to explain, and I doubt it was for show. The research seems to originate from Duke. They likely decided they wanted to see if a monkey could control a humanoid robot but making a robot to see so was outside of the scope of what they were trying to do, they are just making the interface. So they searched out some other team making humanoid robots (which Japan seems to have a lot of). It was likely much easier to setup an internet link to connect the two groups as opposed to meeting in the same location. To meet you would have to move a lot of people and a lot of equipment, all of which would be a customs nightmare. Moving monkeys back and forth over international borders probably requires a lot of checks and paperwork and what not, just as I am sure moving research technology does as well, especially something that large.

      To sum up, it was a hell of a lot cheaper and faster that way.

    2. Re:monkey business by TimeTraveler1884 · · Score: 4, Funny

      why is the robot in north Carolina and the monkey in Japan?
      First of all, the robot was in Japan and the monkey in North Carolina. Because as everyone knows, Japan is the only country with an abundant supply of giant robots.
    3. Re:monkey business by Puff_Of_Hot_Air · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The article is not claiming that the Monkey is directly controling actuators. The monkey is walking, and the signals from it's brain (several hundred neurons), are being used to control the walking motion of the robot. Obviously the processing of monkey neurons response -> robot control is being performed in software specifically tuned to this one monkey with implants. The interesting thing about this experiment is not that they trained a monkey to walk a robot (they didn't), but rather that the monkey was able to keep the robot walking after it had stopped moving itself. This means that all those neurons that the researches are triggering the walking motions from are still going when the monkey thinks about walking but doesn't actually do it. We've known the brain is capable of this for some time, but this is the first experiment I have seen that appears to involve more than a simple "go stop" form of response. If they have tapped enough neurons to control all the actuators required for a robot to walk, then this is news indeed.

    4. Re:monkey business by FailedTheTuringTest · · Score: 4, Informative

      TFA is not very clear about the most important part of this, but other reports spell it out more clearly: "The most stunning finding is that when we stopped the treadmill and the monkey ceased to move its legs, it was able to sustain the locomotion of the robot for a few minutes -- just by thinking -- using only the visual feedback of the robot in Japan."

      The reason for using a robot rather than an animation is that they wanted to prove that neural signals could actually be used to drive real motors. I also think it's interesting that they worked out how to interpret neural signals in the brain by correlating neural impulses with the monkey's own leg motions, this was not a case of intercepting signals traveling along muscle-control nerves. I agree there seems to be no particular reason other than showmanship to do this intercontinentally, though! And in fact the monkey was able to keep the system working through a 250 ms delay, which is an interesting finding because it means that such systems don't need to respond to controls instantly but can tolerate some delay. However, they didn't really need to be on different continents to test that.

    5. Re:monkey business by yet+another+coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Being able to read the monkey's brain sounds like the only innovation here, not making the robot walk.

      No, reading the monkey's brain has been done many times before. This report is gee-whiz, but nothing in it is very innovative.

      So, what is the monkey really doing? I doubt if he is even thinking "left, right, left, right" because even that would be hard to coordinate with so much lag.

      When you walk, you don't think "left, right, left, right." A lot of the rhythm generator is accomplished by central pattern generators, many of the ones involved are in the spinal cord. The same way the brain engages the walk routine built into downstream parts of the nervous system, the brain can engage the walk routine built into a Japanese robot.

      Finally, why is there a damn robot in the first place?

      There is a robot because this group's ultimately goal is to develop neural prosthetics. They have done experiments controlling computer animations, as have quite a few other research groups.

      My guess is that they are simply getting a binary command value from the monkey: "walk" or "don't walk".

      You have a good point here. How finely grained is the monkey's control of the robot? The article does not tell us. I looked unsuccessfully for a corresponding scientific publication. I hope this study is published soon with more details about how specific and how precise the control really is.
  2. The control was great... by FalconZero · · Score: 4, Funny

    ...but the feedback was lousy.

    Monkey : Move Foot Forward
    600ms later...
    Robot : OK....Oh no, I'm falling over, quick move the other foot
    600ms later...
    Monkey : Move Other Foot Forward
    600ms later...
    Robot : I can't do that dave, I've fallen over

    Although I assume in actuallity they left most of the balance control to the robot end of things; either that or the Monkey was psychic.
    (Or more likely they've got a nice low-latency academic link)

    --
    Windows in 6 Bytes (IA-32) : 90 90 90 90 CD 19
  3. Don't put your robot under control of a monkey! by Oktober+Sunset · · Score: 4, Funny

    I want my robot to do my house work and fetch me beer and food, not hang from the light fitting and throw faeces at me.

    --
    What if Tetris was invented by Nazis?
  4. monkey thoughts by dominious · · Score: 4, Informative

    i was looking at this today: http://sciencehack.com/videos/view/TK1WBA9Xl3c
    watch after 0:44, the monkey learnt how to control the robotic arm with its thoughts in order to feed itself:)