http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget.com/media/2012/07/mind-robot-israel-overlays.jpg What if you could control a robot – wait, don’t answer yet – with your mind? Pretty great, right? That’s what the Virtual Embodiment and Robotic Re-embodiment (VERE) group is working on, and it’s made some pretty good, you know, strides. New Scientist details a test utilizing fMRI brain activity-sensing technology to control a robot in France from a laboratory in Israel. The volunteer was able to perform tasks like walking around a room, following a person with the small 'bot and locating a teapot, using visuals from a camera embedded in the robot’s head. There’s a “small” delay in the technology, but researcher Ori Cohen insists that it’s possible to anticipate and compensate for it.
The technology, which one scientist compared to Avatar](http://www.engadget.com/2010/08/25/james-cameron-talks-avatars-theatrical-blu-ray-special-edition/), naturally, has some truly beneficial potential applications, and the scientists have plans to test it out with paralyzed subjects, giving them the opportunity to control a surrogate with their mind. The fMRI technology, meanwhile, may be swapped out for an electrode-based electroencephalogram system, and the scientists plan to try things out with a Japanese robot that is roughly the height of a human for future testing. Check out a video of the project in its current state after the break.
Continue reading Scientists take mind-controlled robot for a stroll (video)
Scientists take mind-controlled robot for a stroll (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 06 Jul 2012 15:11:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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