Helicopter flown through hoops by thought-power

11 years ago | Posted in: Technology | 545 Views

Anyone who’s read Stephen King’s Carrie might be a bit alarmed to discover that a helicopter has been controlled by the power of telekinesis.

But the aircraft in question was not brought down in a hail of flames by a humiliated prom queen bent on revenge, Metro is happy to reassure readers.

Instead, the model copter was flown in an orderly fashion across a college gymnasium, by volunteers wearing caps fitted with electrodes.

Instead of using a remote control to manoeuvre it, they simply thought about what they wanted it to do.

The resulting electrical impulses inside their brains were detected by the electrodes and used to guide the helicopter through a series of foam hoops.

‘For the first time, humans are able to control the flight of flying robots using just their thoughts, sensed from non-invasive brain waves,’ said Prof Bin He.

The breakthrough is perhaps unlikely to provide a solution for weary airline pilots who want to work from home.

But the lives of paralysed survivors left unable to speak after accidents could be transformed by the research at the University of Minnesota college of science and engineering, in the US.

Using similar technology, they could give wordless orders to robots to fetch and carry for them.

Direct interfaces between the brain and machines could even allow blind and deaf people to inwardly ‘see’ and ‘hear’ sights and sounds captured by cameras and microphones.

Participants in the helicopter experiment – reported in the Journal of Neural Engineering – were shown pilot’s-view images from an on-board camera.

By imagining they were using either their left hand, right hand or both hands together, they could make the helicopter turn left, right, lift or fall.

source: http://metro.co.uk

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