Telepresence: a semi-autonomous for the paralyzed

Paralyzed patients successfully control the robot, located many miles from them - using the only team formulated in the mind.

Up to full telepathic robot is still far, but their ability to read thoughts quickly improved. Let's remember how simple commands that are read directly from the brain monkey, allowed her to eat without using their hands (" Nimble thought "), and another - control of walking robots (" the power of thought "). Similarly, people - for example, paralyzed patients - today can establish at least minimal contact with the outside world, controlling a cursor on a computer screen.
Unfortunately, all these systems now require the control of concentrations of certain skills, and success comes only after many attempts. Therefore, Swiss researchers from the Institute of EPFL set out to create a robot control interface of mental helper to use them would be no harder than driving. To do this, they, in particular, decided to use a semi-autonomous robot capable of independently solving a number of tasks that a healthy person does without any effort or intervention of consciousness - for example, adherence of the patient or avoiding collisions with obstacles. And only when the robot encounters something unexpected, mental commands of its master interfere.
The basis of the scientists took a commercially available robot Robotino manufactured by Festo Didactic. After some modifications, they were three-wheeled mobile platform that can move, revealing the obstacles through on-board infrared sensors, and avoiding them. It was installed a laptop with a webcam, wireless networking support for WiFi, as well as installed and running program Skype , providing transmission of video, voice and text information. This allowed to establish remote interaction with the robot.
At the opposite end - a man who summed up the head electrode electroencephalograph , continuous information about relieving activity of the brain. The system automatically "translates" it into instructions that guide the robot, and sends them to him. The excitation of neurons in the brain that are associated with the movement and orientation that are identical in all men, and use them to control the robot was not too difficult.From a man with almost no additional effort of concentration. At least from the average person. But as everything goes to the patient bedridden for years and may have already forgotten all the skills associated with self-moving?
To find out, the authors found a couple of patients who have immobilized 6-7 years in a row, and within six weeks trained them control the robot - just one hour a week. The success was obvious: do not leave the hospital bed, both patients were able to direct the movement of the robot, who was in the author's laboratory system, for a hundred miles away. The researchers asked them (to the robot) to move to a particular object or person, and all went well. In any case, no less successful than normal healthy people.
Apparently, the use of semi-autonomous robot was really useful idea: when developers turned off its built-in self-navigating, and patients were forced to completely take control over, that all of the same problems require much more time and effort.