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MEDICAL TECHNOLOGY
 Robot arm lends a helping hand
Individuals paralysed as a result of an accident or serious illness are reliant on other people for help. The EU-funded project Brain2Robot aims to give such individuals a helping hand by developing a robot arm that can be controlled by the user’s thoughts. An international team of researchers has created a robot control system that works on the basis of signals from the brain which could in future help patients with severe motor disabilities regain a level of independence.
 | A robot arm controlled by the user’s thoughts can help people suffering from paralysis.
© Fraunhofer FIRST |
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The patient can manoeuvre the robot arm with their thoughts. If they think about wanting to move their right hand, the robot arm is activated. If they imagine themselves moving their left hand, the robot arm will, for instance, lift up a cup of coffee. This has been made possible by through a concept known as a brain computer interface (BCI) developed by researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Computer Architecture and Software Technology (FIRST) and the Charité hospital in Berlin, who have been working on the concept for the last seven years.
The scientists use a conventional electroencephalogram (EEG) of the sort employed in routine clinical procedures. Electrodes are attached to the scalp of the patient in order to measure the brain’s electrical signals, which are then amplified and transmitted to a computer. Highly efficient algorithms analyse these signals using a self-learning technique.
The software is capable of detecting changes in brain activity triggered purely by the mental conception of a particular behaviour. It can recognise and distinguish between patterns of signals corresponding to the idea of moving the left or right hand and extract them from the many millions of neural impulses in the brain. These neural signal patterns are converted into control commands for the computer.
In the Brain2Robot project, the pattern reflecting the idea of moving the right hand is used to set the robot arm in motion; the signal for the left hand triggers a certain action of the arm, such as grasping or lifting a coffee cup. Team leader Florin Popescu says, ' The project is designed to help severely handicapped people cope with everyday life. The advantage of our technology is that it can directly convert intended movements into control commands for the computer'.
The Brain2Robot project has been granted around EUR 1.3 million in research funding under the EU's Sixth Framework Programme. Its focus lies on developing medical applications, in particular control systems for prosthetics, personal robots and wheelchairs. Researchers have also developed a "thought-controlled typewriter", a communication device that enables severely paralysed patients to pick out letters of the alphabet and write texts.
The BCI technology has other potential uses, for instance in playing video games or as part of safety systems for cars, providing driver monitoring and driver assistance functions. A cheap and lightweight robot arm could be ready for commercialisation within a few years.
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More information:
Fraunhofer Institute for Computer Architecture and Software Technology FIRST
'Mental typewriter controlled by thought alone'
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