Control a flying robot with just your thoughts
University of Minnesota researchers have developed a new non-invasive system that allows people to control a flying robot using only their mind. The work has the potential to help people with paralysis or neurodegenerative diseases.
Five subjects took part in the study, published in the Journal of Neural Engineering. The participants were each able to successfully control the four-blade flying robot (quadcopter) quickly and accurately for a sustained amount of time using only their thoughts.
"Our study shows that for the first time, humans are able to control the flight of flying robots using just their thoughts sensed from a non-invasive skull cap," said Bin He, lead author of the study and Biomedical Engineering Professor in the University’s College of Science and Engineering. "It works as good as invasive techniques used in the past."
The method is called electroencephalography (EEG), which is a unique brain-computer interface that records the electrical activity of the volunteers’ brains through a skull cap that contains 64 electrodes.
This study is the first to use functional MRI and EEG imaging to map where in the brain neurons are activated when someone imagines movements.
It is the geography of the brain’s motor cortex (the area of the cerebrum that governs movement which is responsible for the interface’s functionality say the researchers.
When we move or think about a movement, neurons in the motor cortex produce a series of tiny electric currents. When we think about a different movement, a new assortment of neurons is activated. It is in sorting out these assortments that has laid the groundwork for the system used at Minnesota.
During the study, the participants faced away from the quadcopter and were asked to imagine using their right hand, left hand and both hands together to move the flying robot.
The subjects were positioned in front of a screen that relayed images of the quadcopter’s flight through an on-board camera. Brain signals were recorded by the EEG cap and sent to the robot over Wi-Fi.
This new research builds upon previous research conducted in He’s laboratory where participants were able to control a virtual helicopter on a computer screen.
“Our next step is to use the mapping and engineering technology we’ve developed to help disabled patients interact with the world,” He said. “It may even help patients with conditions like autism or Alzheimer’s disease or help stroke victims recover. We’re now studying some stroke patients to see if it’ll help rewire brain circuits to bypass damaged areas.”
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