A Wheelchair That Reads Your Mind
From: Wired News - 01/29/2007
By: Emmet Cole

Researchers in Spain are creating a robotic wheelchair that can be controlled
by its user's thoughts alone. While current brain-computer interfaces (BCIs)
that work with electroencephalogram electrodes (EEGs) have been physically
plugged into the brain, powered by large immobile computers, and known for
producing crude signals, the "Biomedical Evaluation Of Robots to Assist Human
Mobility" project seeks to create a non-invasive BCI powered by mobile
computers that can understand simple commands such as "stop," "go," "left,"
and "right." "You're not going to be using EEGs to control a robotic arm to
play the piano or anything," says Case Western Reserve University's
Department of Biomedical Engineering professor Dawn Taylor, who is not
involved in the project but has knowledge of the technology being used. "But
you can certainly turn right and left and stop and go using that sort of
signal." The Spanish Ministry of Education and Science says it hopes the
technology could one day provide mobility to those with limited motor
capabilities as a result of injury, disability, or old age. Two 800 MHz
computers mounted on the wheelchair are being used to process the BCI
readings and transmit commands to the wheels. About a week of training is
needed for the software to adapt to a user's thought patterns for basic
commands. "The important issue is to have a good selection of the mental
tasks for each user, so that they produce discriminable EEG patterns," says
University of Zaragoza researcher Javier Minguez. 

Read the entire article at:
http://www.wired.com/news/technology/medtech/0,72580-0.html

Links:
Brain Computer Interfaces
http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,71364-0.html

This Is a Computer on Your Brain
http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,71364-0.html

Transforming Thoughts Into Deeds
http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,61889-0.html

Patients Put on Thinking Caps
http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,66259-0.html

Now That's Using Your Brain
http://www.wired.com/news/technology/medtech/0,70568-0.html

Your Thoughts Are Your Password
http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,70726-0.html

I Think, Therefore I Communicate
http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,59737-0.html

Mind Control
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/13.03/brain.html

Javier Minguez
http://webdiis.unizar.es/~jminguez/

Spanish Ministry of Education and Science
http://www.mec.es/

Dawn Taylor
http://bme.case.edu/faculty_staff/taylor/

Think-a-Move
http://www.think-a-move.com/
