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A Chinese research team has developed a robot whose movements can be controlled with just the human brain, reports the Chinese-language Changsha Evening News.
The award-winning team of researchers at the National University of Defense Technology in Changsha, the capital of south-central China's Hunan province, recently tested the self-made brain-controlled robot, which was able to move forward and backwards and make flexible turns with its body through brainwaves sent from an electrode cap worn by the controller.
According to Jiang Jun, a doctoral student in the team, the cap strengthens weak brainwaves before sending them back to their computers, which effectively reads the mind of the controller from the brainwave signals.
"The computer will turn human thoughts into control instructions and send them back to the robot through wireless facility so that we can control it to finish the movements, including moving forward and turning left and right," he said.
The experiment has been compared to the technology in the 2009 James Cameron film Avatar, in which a paraplegic marine was able to control an alien avatar on a distant planet with his brain.
It is hoped that the breakthrough will eventually allow people to drive cars without using their hands and for handicapped people to control their wheelchairs with just their minds. It could also make daily life more convenient by enabling people to open doors and operate kitchen appliances without physical interaction.
"We have combined human and cars through a brain-machine interface. On the one hand, we want to develop the preciseness of computer driving. On the other, we want to include human intelligence," said Liu Yadong, an associate professor at the university, who added that brain-controlled guns and vehicles could one day be applied to the battlefield.
China will continue to explore the power of the brain in the future after the "China Brain Project" received approval from the Chinese State Council. The project's three main aims are to learn how to better understand the brain, protect the brain and simulate the brain.