A “Silent Talk” Robot
November 22, 2011 | Terry Sharrer
What would it take for a paralyzed person to mentally move a robot around a room that was 62 miles away? For a researcher at the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne, it involved a Robotino 3-wheeled robot with infrared sensors, a Skype connection, EEG electrodes affixed to the paralyzed person’s head, and a laptop’s screen. For 12 minutes, this experiment in “silent talk,” where the EEG signals translated into navigational instructions, moved the robot as though guided by a joystick. MORE