RESEARCHERS at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS) have developed a technology that can remotely operate devices or robots through the mind. The technology was recently demonstrated by the Australian army, where soldiers operated a four-legged robot using a brain-machine interface.
This interface was developed by UTS professors Chin-Teng Lin and Francesca Iacopi, in collaboration with the Australian army and the Defence Innovation Hub. It is composed of sensors, placed mainly at the back of the scalp, which are in charge of detecting brainwaves from the visual cortex. These sensors are made of silicon and graphene, which are particularly durable materials, but are perfect conductors when in contact with the skin.
The user wears an augmented reality headset that displays flashing white squares, each corresponding to a possible command. By focusing on one of them, the brain waves of the user are captured and then "translated" into an instruction (stop, turn right or left, etc.) via a kind of decoder. The robot then executes the order.
This is an advance in brain-machine interfaces and could simplify set-ups, since it would no longer be necessary to use tools, such as keyboards, joysticks or touchscreens, to interact with a machine.
In the future, this technology could prove useful in the aerospace or healthcare fields. For example, one day, a disabled person could control a wheelchair or a prosthetic device simply with his or her mind.