By daimaou
Honda, ATR, and Shimazu – One Step Away from World Domination with Humans Controlling Robots by Thought!
They made it! Yes Honda, ATR, and Shimazu succeed in making the impossible possible, controlling an Asimo like robot directly by thought! Want to know more? Check out the video and the press release below!
TOKYO, Japan, March 31, 2009 – Honda Research Institute Japan Co., Ltd. (HRI-JP), a subsidiary of Honda R&D Co., Ltd., Advanced Telecommunications Research Institute International (ATR) and Shimadzu Corporation have collaboratively developed the world’s first*1 Brain Machine Interface (BMI) technology that uses electroencephalography (EEG) and near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) along with newly developed information extraction technology to enable control of a robot by human thought alone. It does not require any physical movement such as pressing buttons. This technology will be further developed for the application to human-friendly products in the future by integrating it with intelligent technologies and/or robotic technologies.
During the human thought process, slight electrical current and blood flow change occur in the brain. The most important factor in the development of the BMI technology is the accuracy of measuring and analyzing these changes. The newly developed BMI technology uses EEG, which measures changes in electrical potential on the scalp, and NIRS, which measures changes in cerebral blood flow, with a newly developed information extraction technology which enables statistical processing of the complex information from these two types of sensors. As a result, it became possible to distinguish brain activities with high precision without any physical motion, but just human thought alone.
The BMI technology announced by HRI-JP and ATR in 2006 used a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scanner to measure brain activities. The large size and powerful magnetic field generated by the fMRI scanner limited the locations and conditions where it can be used. As the newly developed measuring device uses EEG and NIRS sensors, it can be transported to and used in various locations.
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Wow…..
This is the beginning of I Robot. The robots are going to take over the world! Maybe it’ll be the Matrix. Who knows haha
Amazing that they can do this. I really enjoy that they upgraded an “old” humanoid instead of spending billions to create one from scratch.
I typed this using my self-developed brain-machine interface: fingers.