Funny Hat Plus Refrigerator Equals Brain Control Of Robots

Writing by Evan Ackerman on Tuesday, 31 of March , 2009 at 3:44 am

Well, it sounds like a great idea… Control robots by thinking! All it takes is about a thousand electrodes pasted to your skull and some computer hardware about the size of a refrigerator, and you too can get ASIMO to raise its hand just by looking at a card with a picture of a hand on it:

Alright, so maybe in practice, this isn’t the slickest system yet. But when you’re trying to sift very specific thoughts/actions (like right hand as opposed to left hand) out of frothy brain juice that’s mostly preoccupied with boobies and that newfangled rock ‘n roll, it takes a lot of sensors and a lot of processing power and it’s STILL impressive that it works 90% of the time. Honda’s concept of thinking about things and having automated systems fulfill your every desire is undeniably cool, and if you’re not too picky about it, this sort of technology may be here sooner than you think.

Honda’s full press release, after the jump.

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.

VIA [ Akihabara News ]

Comments (5)

Category: Androids, Artificial Intelligence, Biorobotics, Cybernetics, Research

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5 Comments

Comment by Zool

Made Tuesday, 31 of March , 2009 at 9:30 am

This seems something of a marketing sham. They are not demonstrating anything new in this video. Imagine replacing Asimo with 4 light bulbs and it highlights how pointless it is to use Asimo like this video is showing. Asimo is reacting to one of four binary conditions, and then playing back one of four canned animations in response. The custom built chair and CPU box behind it, while impressive looking, with its nice blue lighting, is more showmanship than science.

Replace Asimo with 4 LED’s. Replace the custom built CPU box with a chair, table, PC and an interfacing PCB going to the headset and it’ll give the same results as this demonstration. All the rest is meaningless showmanship trying to imply they are more advanced than it really is.

Nice slick video presentation, with a Utopian at times 1960s dreamlike jetsons style glimpse of the future about it, but its covering up I suspect a marketing stunt.

Comment by Evan Ackerman

Made Tuesday, 31 of March , 2009 at 1:19 pm

I agree that ASIMO is not particularly relevant to the technology itself, but it is relevant to be able to control a robot without moving, which is a second aspect that I think they are trying to demonstrate. For the disabled, say.

Comment by Mike

Made Tuesday, 31 of March , 2009 at 10:06 pm

Another ROV? ;) just kidding.

I can totally see this advancing and providing the elderly, bedbound, and paralyzed with a telepresence way of doing more… one day.

Comment by Zool

Made Wednesday, 1 of April , 2009 at 6:59 am

Evan Ackerman:
I very much agree the concept of the technology itself has a lot of use for the disabled etc.. (For example there was an interesting documentary on UK TV some months back, showing a brain controlled research wheelchair that had the potential for as much control as this Honda brain interface).

Here’s a 6 minute long video link to the wheel chair part of the TV show. Its got some interesting details. (The whole TV show was about robots :)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uyrd0uOuyms

The thing I find disappointing is this Honda video is a distorted advertising tool for Honda engineering. They have made an interesting video but in their effort to make it look impressive its somewhat fraudulently implying its better than it is. (Not least because their 4 bit output device is a talking and walking Asimo, which is total overkill to demonstrate the technology, other than to market Honda engineering).

Comment by Rudy Tan

Made Thursday, 28 of May , 2009 at 1:38 am

kemjuan tehnologi nyg hebat