Telekinetics? Bed-Bound Patients Move Robots Using Just Thoughts

Deus in machina. A semiautonomous robot can be controlled with the brain waves of paralyzed patients. Credit: José del R. Millán. From Science Now

“They’re not quite psychic yet, but machines are getting better at reading your mind. Researchers have invented a new, noninvasive method for recording patterns of brain activity and using them to steer a robot. Scientists hope the technology will give “locked in” patients—those too disabled to communicate with the outside world—the ability to interact with others and even give the illusion of being physically present, or “telepresent,” with friends and family.

“Previous brain-machine interface systems have made it possible for people to control robots, cursors, or prosthetics with conscious thought, but they often take a lot of effort and concentration, says José del R. Millán, a biomedical engineer at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland, who develops brain-machine interface systems that don’t need to be implanted into the brain.

Fraunhofer Sends Spiders to the Rescue

20 cm long legs and elasic bellows for the joints support the high-tech robot spider built by the Fraunhofer IPA. Picture: Fraunhofer

Silicon.de recently reported on a new robot for hazardous missions: The high-tech spider developed by the Fraunhofer Institute for Manufacturing Engineering and Automation IPA in Stuttgart (Germany). The spider is built using a 3-D printing technique and is extremely lightweight. The Fraunhofer IPA reports in its research news:

Robot Birds and Octoroaches On The Loose at UC Berkeley

Octoroach---image from the article quoted

As mentioned in an earlier blog (Quadrotors Can Now Play Catch, All-Robot Baseball Team Closer to Reality) I have a weakness for flying robots and having studied insects for a considerable time during my research years I find the objects mentioned here fascinating. The following are quotes from the article.

Quadrotors Can Now Play Catch, All-Robot Baseball Team Closer to Reality – IEEE Spectrum

I have to admit my weakness for robots. Especially when they are flying. I find this really fascinating.

Read the full article here: Quadrotors Can Now Play Catch, All-Robot Baseball Team Closer to Reality – IEEE Spectrum.

Would this not come in handy for the next cherry stone spitting contest?

Related articles

• This Drone Is Better at Catching Than You [Video] (gizmodo.com)
• Robot Swarm Could Steal Your Books (ponderingtechnology.wordpress.com)
• Quadrotor Roundup (makezine.com)

Robot Swarm Could Steal Your Books

Swarmanoid Robots cooperate to fulfill tasks (Source IEEE Spectrum)

Swarmanoid Robot Teams Up with Itself to Steal Your Books – IEEE Spectrum.

“The Swarmanoid swarm consists of three discrete types of robots, all of which we’ve been introduced to before: Foot-Bots can grab onto other robots and move horizontally. Hand-Bots have manipulators and a freakin’ sweet magnetic grappling hook that lets them move vertically. And Eye-Bots can fly, perch on ceilings, and direct the movements of the Hand-Bots and Foot-Bots with their cameras.

“While trying to manage so many robots all at once may seem needlessly complicated, a swarm of robots has all kinds of advantages: swarms are adaptable, scalable, resilient, cost-effective, and very efficient at any task that involves being in more than one place at once, like search and rescue (or search and steal). There are downsides, too, like having to recharge each and every one of these little guys, but with some epic amounts of cleverness by robotics researchers, robot swarms are getting to the point where they’re able to pretty much take care of themselves, and after that, the sky’s the limit.”  – [Quote from IEEE Spectrum Automaton]

The video shows how the robots in the swarm interact and intelligently carry out the task to get a book from the shelf and transport it away.

The interesting applications for such swarms of robots might be around help in catastrophe scenarios, search and rescue missions and explorations of dangerous territory.

The next time you are missing a book and cannot find it in its place you will know who the culprit was . . .

Related articles

• Swarmanoid Robot Teams Up with Itself to Steal your Books (spectrum.ieee.org)
• Meet Swarmanoid, a cuddly gang of robots who use grappling hooks to rob you [Video](io9.com)
• Swarmanoids rule (i-programmer.info)
• Swarmanoid robots work together … to steal books (gizmag.com)
• AI’s Emmy award goes to Swarmanoid robot book heist (physorg.com)
• Fukushima Robot Operator Writes Tell-All Blog (spectrum.ieee.org)
• A Robot to Rescue Trapped Miners  (spectrum.ieee.org)
• Weird UAV Demos Caught on Video (spectrum.ieee.org)