Brain-Controlled Quadcopter Drone Takes Flight in China

Researchers at Zhejiang University in China have developed a way to control a quadcopter drone using brainwave-reading technology. Image: Zhejiang University via YouTube

While humanity is still far from possessing the power of Professor X, brain-control technologies are progressing. We’ve written about brainwaves being used to play PC games, control smartphone apps, shift gears on bicycles and even control a pair of fuzzy cat ears. And now drones. It was only a matter of time, right?

Researchers at Zhejiang University in Hangzhou, China, have posted a YouTube video demonstrating a mind-controlled quadcopter drone. By wearing an EEG (emotiv electroencephalography) headset, Zhejiang’s researchers claim they can pilot a quadcopter by thinking “left hard” to take off or land, “left” to rotate the quadcopter clockwise, “right” to fly forward and “push” to fly up.

A user who clenches while wearing the headset will steer the quadcopter downward, while blinking will shoot photos from the on-drone camera. The EEG headset sends commands via Bluetooth to a laptop, which then sends them to the quadcopter by way of a Wi-Fi connection. The quadcopter also streams its view back to the laptop over Wi-Fi, to give its pilots a better view and more precise control.

The system, dubbed Flying Buddy 2, was designed with disabled users in mind, ideally to give people with impaired motor skills a new way to interact with the world around them, according to a report from NewScientist. And, as seen in the demo video below, there are some gaming applications here too. But the system is still in the early prototype stages — this sort of thing won’t be sold at BestBuy or Amazon anytime soon. The next step? The Flying Buddy team will present their work at the Ubicomp ubiquitous computing conference in Pittsburgh next week.

Source: http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2012/08/zhejiang-university-china-brain-controlled-quadcopter/

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