Toyota Demonstrates Brain Control of Wheelchair 107
An anonymous reader tips us that researchers at Toyota have developed a brain-machine interface system that allows for control of a wheelchair using thought. The system processes brain thought patterns (such as the thought of moving one's left foot) and can turn them into left, right, and forward movements of the wheelchair with a delay as short as one-eighth of a second. That's a big improvement over existing systems, which can take as long as several seconds to analyze and react to the user's thoughts. "The system has an emergency stop that can be activated by the user puffing his cheeks. The BMI adjusts itself over time to the characteristics of each driver's brainwaves. If a person dedicates three hours a day to using the system, the BMI can reach 95% accuracy in a week, researchers said."
Re:95% accuracy is pretty awesome. (Score:5, Interesting)
That's nearly perfect. (Score:2, Interesting)
It's called the Audeo (Score:3, Interesting)
This was done a few years ago in a different way: you wear an electronic collar which eavesdrops on the nerves running to your vocal chords. These signals are then decoded into words. Finally, some words, like "forward", are interpreted as intentions to move. The system is called the Audeo.
Official site: http://www.theaudeo.com/ [theaudeo.com]
Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iyQv61899HE [youtube.com]
Article: http://zone.ni.com/devzone/cda/tut/p/id/6130 [ni.com]
meh.. post some decent articles kdawson (Score:4, Interesting)
I just feel that this is just another promo ad that gets sent to tech sites from some publicists to get the title of the technology spread with their name on it.
this article, (06/29/2009) [gizmodo.com]
Brain controlled wheelchair developed at University of South Florida (02/11/2009) [robotliving.com]
from European scientists, Brain Controlled Wheelchair (05/11/2008) [ubergizmo.com]
Ambient Tech creates brain controlled wheelchair (09/06/2007) [newscientist.com]
Brain controlled wheelchair from spanish inventor (01/29/2007) [futurismic.com]
University of Electro Communications in Japan develop brain controlled wheelchair (08/11/2006) [pinktentacle.com]
Yeah I'll stop. Mod me down. I just think it's odd that this stuff gets press like it's something brand new. Perhaps sell us by saying its much better? Something. Please.
Stephen Hawking (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:95% accuracy is pretty awesome. (Score:2, Interesting)
I know I've tried putting my roomba on top of a table (or tried to make it go off the stairs), but it just stops when it gets to an edge. It also stops when its bumpers hit a wall, by the way. I don't know how much this wheelchair would cost, but I wouldn't be surprised if you could add the cost of a couple roombas without making a significant dent in the price.
Re:Captain Pike calling... (Score:4, Interesting)
You don't need a "no" response, actually. You can communicate quite well with just a "Yes". (Here is where I explain all of the humor out of the Capt. Pike joke.) The computer can automatically scan through a series of options and the user can activate when it gets to the option he or she wants. If no response, it simply assumes No and moves on.
If you want to see examples of this system at work, check out Jean-Dominique Bauby's system in the film The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, where it scans the letters of the alphabet in order of frequency (in French in his case).
Stephen Hawking uses a row-column system that scans through dictionaries of whole words large blocks at a time, each selection narrowing down the options to the word, so that he only has to resort to spelling things out for infrequently occurring words.
This Article Should Be Called... (Score:2, Interesting)