Mind controlled motorized wheelchair demonstrated

You know that the future's here when technology arrives that allows vehicles to be controlled with nothing but a thought. Ambient, in partnership with the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago, has developed a wheelchair that can be instructed to move when the driver thinks about certain words. The key component is a larynx control system called the Audeo, developed by the founders of Ambient, Michael Callahan and Thomas Coleman. The New Scientist has a video demonstration of the unit, which is surprisingly eerie without the usual subtle twitch of a hand that accompanies regular motorized wheelchairs. The next stage in the project -- externally recognizing individual words imagined in the brain -- is apparently a while off: still, we think a thought controlled anything at this stage in the game is a major feat.

[Ryan @ Sep 10th 2007 7:18PM]

Seems pretty nifty. Although my guess is it could be slow at times. Something that actually gets its information directly from the brain would of course be better, but this is still amazing.

[engadget @ Sep 10th 2007 7:29PM]

Davros ?

[scott @ Sep 10th 2007 7:30PM]

how bout me?

[Sean @ Sep 10th 2007 7:32PM]

Does this remind anyone of a particular Doctor Xavier? LOL

[Josh @ Sep 10th 2007 8:00PM]

That is exactly what i was thinking when i read the title. Surprised conrad didn't make any remarks about that.

Pretty creepy - looks like fun.

[xomero @ Sep 10th 2007 7:36PM]

Perfecto para mi abuelita

[Jeffrey Glover @ Sep 10th 2007 7:42PM]

Eerie Indeed!

[justin.johnson3 @ Sep 10th 2007 9:17PM]

It is really eerie to see in person; these guys gave a little presentation to the IEEE Student organization at University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana (both founders are graduates). Pretty slick if you ask me, I really wanted to try it out.

[Matthew Hilario @ Sep 10th 2007 7:57PM]

I seen similar things to this practiced in sweden and now here in san diego. This game called "mindball" in which players attempt to control a ball on a particular table using alpha and theta brain waves. those being waves controlled by relaxation, the control for this wheelchair is probably something similar.

and it does look like professor x. rofl.

[strider_mt2k @ Sep 10th 2007 8:02PM]

"...that's telekinesis, Kyle!"
"How about the power...to move you?"

-Tenacious D

[Jose D. @ Sep 10th 2007 8:30PM]

"We need a program of psychosurgery for political control of our society. The purpose is physical control of the mind. Everyone who deviates from the given norm can be surgically mutilated.

"The individual may think that the most important reality is his own existence, but this is only his personal point of view. This lacks historical perspective.

"Man does not have the right to develop his own mind. This kind of liberal orientation has great appeal. We must electrically control the brain. Some day armies and generals will be controlled by electric stimulation of the brain."

- Dr. Jose Delgado
Director of Neuropsychiatry
Yale University Medical School
Congressional Record, No. 26, Vol. 118
February 24, 1974

[HaX80r @ Sep 10th 2007 9:05PM]

Sounds a bit like that Star Trek TOS episode where a Starfleet captain was horribly injured and was put into a wheelchair-like device that would blink a light on the front once for "yes" and twice for "no". Then the captain used Morse code to communicate with Spock, and told him to do something that got them both in trouble. I can't remember the details or the episode name.

Anyway, this is great. I find it interesting that they interface it with vocal control and not some motor control. I can imagine a situation where the person in the chair accidentally uses a control word in conversation, and ends up ramming the person he's talking to.

[Karim @ Sep 10th 2007 10:36PM]

Captain Christopher Pike, in the episode "The Menagerie."

SPOCK: Captain Pike, did you use Morse code to communicate in that episode?

PIKE: beeep. beeeep. (NO)

Favorite part is when Number One is vaporizing the top of a mountain with a phaser cannon using a trillion Watts of electric death beamed down from the Enterprise, and she casually calls back to the ship and says, "Can you give us any MORE?" You gotta love a woman like that.

This technology does not remind me of Pike's wheelchair so much as the subvocalization communications system used in the "Ghost in the Shell" series. Presumably the output was synthesized speech sent over a radio (without the mouth moving); hearing must have involved wireless cochlear implants.

Seems like the military would be all over that kind of technology! No need for Close Range Engagement hand signals.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subvocalization

[Eldiablo @ Sep 11th 2007 7:55AM]

See also Futurama - Where No Fan Has Gone before.


I'd be afraid to fall asleep in that chair - you might end up in the ladies changing rooms, and that would open up all sorts of awkward questions...

[Loner45 @ Sep 10th 2007 10:13PM]

that would never work for me i get distracted way too easily

[Scooter @ Sep 11th 2007 7:39AM]

strap Stephen Hawking into it and see how fast he can go!
If great minds can control it better, the paralympics could boast the equivalent of acrobatics.

[andy @ Sep 11th 2007 9:37AM]

OMG,

They're going to add this to those little battery carts at the supermarket so all the obese people don't even have to move in order to have the little cart take them around to get even more food.

I can't believe it's actually going to get worse.

[james @ Sep 12th 2007 2:56AM]

It would be interesting to see if they can harness other "impulses" and not just the vocal ones. For instance, when you go to raise your arm, it's your brain that first has to communicate to your muscles that you want to raise your arm. Those electric impulses have to have a frequency of sorts, similar to the impulses that control speech and communication. When scientists can figure that out, it will act more as an extension of someone's body, rather than interacting on an external "verbal" level. Very cool!

"These aren't the droids you're looking for."

[jwa @ Sep 13th 2007 10:03AM]

Ambient showed and discussed their technology during National Instruments NIWeek this August since they are using LabVIEW when developing the code.
Check it out here:
http://www.ni.com/niweek/keynote_videos.htm
Tuesday 7 August 2007, section called algorithm engineering.