Over the years, scientists have been continually searching for and examining how the brain signals the command of a prosthetic limb. Most studies, however, focus on improving the arm or leg of a robot for the disabled.However, a team of scientists at the Advanced Telecommunication Research Institute (ATR) in Kyoto, Japan chose a completely different direction. The team has created a robotic arm that can perform tasks with the command of the brain. In other words, with this robot arm, you can use your mind to do many things at the same time.
To test the practicality, the scientists gave 15 people a robot arm attached to the side. This arm is linked to the brain via a hat with an external electrode. The cap is responsible for recording the activity of brain waves and converting them into control signals for the arm
The task of each person is to transmit the brainwave signal to the arm and perform the command, hold a bottle of water.
In particular, they are required to do two tasks simultaneously. First of all, they would have to order the robotic arm to hold and drop a bottle of water. Meanwhile, they have to use two real hands to balance the ball on the tray.Research shows that 8 out of 15 people are able to keep their balance and control the robot arm holding the water bottle. In contrast, the remaining 7 people have difficulty and only succeed in half the time prescribed.
"These two groups have no difference in their ability to control their arms, but they may differ in their ability to focus on multiple tasks at the same time," said ATR's Shuichi Nishio.
In other words, Nishio said that those who are better at testing are merely good at handling multiple tasks at once.
In another experiment, the tester ordered the robotic arm to hold the water bottle so that they could drink water through the straw, while the other two were still cautioning the computer keyboard as usual.Robot robots of Japanese scientists can apply effectively in factories, families, offices. For example, a third arm can assist workers in carrying heavy loads or supporting work handling.
This robotic arm is somewhat different from many previous studies that focused on prosthetics for humans. In addition to supporting people to do multiple tasks at the same time, testing the robot arm control with the brain also improves the ability of each person to focus and work.
The study was published in the journal Science.
