/ News

09.07.2012

Control a robot with thoughts from inside a brain scanner

Scientists have made it possible for a man in Israel to move a robot in France just by thinking about moving.

By using an fMRI machine, which scans the brain and displays the activity in real time, paralyzed patients or people with locked-in syndrome can interact with the world using a surrogate body. New Scientist reports.

“The ultimate goal is to create a surrogate, like in Avatar, although that’s a long way off yet,” says Abderrahmane Kheddar at the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology in Japan.

Teleoperated robots – those that can be remotely controlled by a human – have been around for decades. Kheddar and his colleagues are going a step further: “by making you feel that the thing you are embodying is part of you.”

To attempt this feat, researchers with the international Virtual Embodiment and Robotic Re-embodiment project used fMRI to scan the brain of university student as he imagined moving different parts of his body.

  1. Researchers from Bar-Ilan University in Israel took the student through several training stages where he attempted to direct a virtual avatar by thinking of moving his left or right hand/leg.
  2. The fMRI scanner measured blood flow to his brain, and using this, the team created an algorithm that could distinguish between each thought of movement.
  3. The commands were sent via the internet to a small robot at the Béziers Technology Institutein France.

The student could control the robot in near real time with his thoughts, while a camera on the robot’s head allowed him to see from the robot’s perspective. When he thought of moving his left or right hand, the robot moved 30 degrees to the left or right. Imagining moving his legs made the robot walk forward.

You can watch a cool video of how it works here (pictured).

He was even able to instruct the robot to follow a person around a room at the French lab, and he also piloted his avatar to locate a teapot placed somewhere in the room.

The next step is to refine it with electroencephalogram (EEG) technology, which uses electrodes attached to the scalp to record electrical activity in the brain – this could work as a skull cap rather than an fMRI machine that a person has to lie in. They also intend to improve the surrogate by replacing the current robot with a more humanoid HRP-4 [video], made by Kawada Industries in Japan.

The results were presented at BioRob 2012 in Rome last month.

Source: http://www.smartplanet.com/blog/rethinking-healthcare/control-a-robot-with-thoughts-from-inside-a-brain-scanner/9443




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Founded by Russian entrepreneur Dmitry Itskov in February 2011 with the participation of leading Russian specialists in the field of neural interfaces, robotics, artificial organs and systems.

The main goals of the 2045 Initiative: the creation and realization of a new strategy for the development of humanity which meets global civilization challenges; the creation of optimale conditions promoting the spiritual enlightenment of humanity; and the realization of a new futuristic reality based on 5 principles: high spirituality, high culture, high ethics, high science and high technologies. 

The main science mega-project of the 2045 Initiative aims to create technologies enabling the transfer of a individual’s personality to a more advanced non-biological carrier, and extending life, including to the point of immortality. We devote particular attention to enabling the fullest possible dialogue between the world’s major spiritual traditions, science and society.

A large-scale transformation of humanity, comparable to some of the major spiritual and sci-tech revolutions in history, will require a new strategy. We believe this to be necessary to overcome existing crises, which threaten our planetary habitat and the continued existence of humanity as a species. With the 2045 Initiative, we hope to realize a new strategy for humanity's development, and in so doing, create a more productive, fulfilling, and satisfying future.

The "2045" team is working towards creating an international research center where leading scientists will be engaged in research and development in the fields of anthropomorphic robotics, living systems modeling and brain and consciousness modeling with the goal of transferring one’s individual consciousness to an artificial carrier and achieving cybernetic immortality.

An annual congress "The Global Future 2045" is organized by the Initiative to give platform for discussing mankind's evolutionary strategy based on technologies of cybernetic immortality as well as the possible impact of such technologies on global society, politics and economies of the future.

 

Future prospects of "2045" Initiative for society

2015-2020

The emergence and widespread use of affordable android "avatars" controlled by a "brain-computer" interface. Coupled with related technologies “avatars’ will give people a number of new features: ability to work in dangerous environments, perform rescue operations, travel in extreme situations etc.
Avatar components will be used in medicine for the rehabilitation of fully or partially disabled patients giving them prosthetic limbs or recover lost senses.

2020-2025

Creation of an autonomous life-support system for the human brain linked to a robot, ‘avatar’, will save people whose body is completely worn out or irreversibly damaged. Any patient with an intact brain will be able to return to a fully functioning  bodily life. Such technologies will  greatly enlarge  the possibility of hybrid bio-electronic devices, thus creating a new IT revolution and will make  all  kinds of superimpositions of electronic and biological systems possible.

2030-2035

Creation of a computer model of the brain and human consciousness  with the subsequent development of means to transfer individual consciousness  onto an artificial carrier. This development will profoundly change the world, it will not only give everyone the possibility of  cybernetic immortality but will also create a friendly artificial intelligence,  expand human capabilities  and provide opportunities for ordinary people to restore or modify their own brain multiple times.  The final result  at this stage can be a real revolution in the understanding of human nature that will completely change the human and technical prospects for humanity.

2045

This is the time when substance-independent minds will receive new bodies with capacities far exceeding those of ordinary humans. A new era for humanity will arrive!  Changes will occur in all spheres of human activity – energy generation, transportation, politics, medicine, psychology, sciences, and so on.

Today it is hard to imagine a future when bodies consisting of nanorobots  will become affordable  and capable of taking any form. It is also hard to imagine body holograms featuring controlled matter. One thing is clear however:  humanity, for the first time in its history, will make a fully managed evolutionary transition and eventually become a new species. Moreover,  prerequisites for a large-scale  expansion into outer space will be created as well.

 

Key elements of the project in the future

• International social movement
• social network immortal.me
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• scientific research centre "Immortality"
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