Brainwaves, Gestures Control Robots Thanks to MIT Scientists

Human brainwaves and hand gestures can control robots thanks to researchers at MIT who created the communication interface.

To control the robot, a person wears a cap with electrodes that measure signals from neurons, Engadget reported. Since humans can recognize when a mistake is made, the brain signal that occurs when that happens sends a message to the robot, which pauses and waits for the human to correct it with hand gestures communicated via muscle activity.

The team improved corrective targets in robots more than 97 percent of the time during exercises supervised by humans, compared to a control group that had correct movements 70 percent of the time, according to Venture Beat.

The process allows people to communicate with robots the same as they do with other people, said Joseph DelPreto, lead author of the project.

“The machine adapts to you and not the other way around,” he explained, Engadget reported.

Combining muscle activity with brain signals, “we can start to pick up on a person’s natural gestures, along with their snap decisions about whether something is going wrong,” he added.

And the system works with any person, even those using it for the first time, so it might have potential for language or mobility disabilities, the team concluded.

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