ASU researcher controls multiple drones with his mind

Arizona State University : Researcher controls multiple drones with single mind
An engineering professor at Arizona State University is developing technology that would allow an Air Force pilot to control an entire fleet of drones using his mind.
From repairing a spacecraft to a remote search-and-rescue, one researcher at Arizona State University says in the near future, increasingly complex tasks will be done by swarms of robots. That’s why he’s developing a system to control multiple robots with the human mind.
The brain activity is decoded by electrodes on a skull cap, decoded, and sent to the drones.
“This is something nobody has done before,” said Panagiotis Artemiadis, director of ASU’s Human-Oriented Robotics and Control Lab.
To be sure, researchers have spent decades working out ways to use the brain’s electrical activity to control a single robot, Artemiadis said, but his approach allows one pilot to control potentially hundreds of robots. That includes drones in the sky and devices on the ground.
Inside his lab at ASU, Artemiadis and his team of grad students are controlling three or four quadcopters at a time behind the safety of a net. They keep the swarm small because space here is limited, Artemiadis said. But in a couple of weeks, they’ll test the mind-control system in a gym on campus with about 20 robots.
An ASU researcher has developed a system to control multiple robots with the human brain.
“I can easily control a hundred robots as long as I have those robots, and I have ways to coordinate those robots – and I have the space,” he said.
In his system, pilots use a joystick (in this case, a PlayStation controller) to move the drones as a group. They use their mind for more complicated swarm behavior.
“For example, their formation,” he said. “Or if you want to cover a specific area, you want to change their inter-distance to cover a bigger area.”
Artemiadis said when pilots picture different formations, it triggers certain areas of their brain. That activity is measured by electrodes on a skull cap, decoded, and sent via Bluetooth to the drones. Picture a circle and the drones will form a circle. Picture an expanding circle, and the drones will spread out.
ASU researchers are testing the power using the brain to control drones on a small group of them.
The research is funded by an $860,000 grant from the Department of Defense.
“Obviously, there are military applications where you want to use multiple small robots instead of a single one, but there are also applications in everyday life. For an example, if you want to access a remote area to provide medical help,” he said.
The advantage of a swarm is that if some robots fail, the rest can still accomplish the mission, he said.
Meet The Man Who Controls Drones With His Mind

drones can
be controlled at least in part with the
human mind
the future of robotic warfare could be
nigh
an engineering professor at Arizona
State University is developing
technology that would allow an Air Force
pilot to control an entire fleet of
drones using his mind
panagiotis are tamiya dis runs the
university’s human-oriented robotics and
control lab where researchers seek to
understand and improve interactions
between humans and robots
the lab was awarded grants totaling
eight hundred and sixty thousand dollars
from the Defense Advanced Research
Projects Agency and US air force in 2014
to build out the mind control technology

10 or 20 years from now instead of
having big expensive aircraft drones
you can have hundreds of thousands of
inexpensive ones you deploy in an area
are tamiya de said even if you lose half
of them you can still achieve your goals
those drones can be controlled at least
in part with the human mind
he said the pilot was what looks like a
high-tech swimmers cap equipped with 128
electrodes that detect brainwaves the
electrodes identify where thoughts
originated in the brain and determine
the pilots intended command and then
those commands are communicated to the
robots via bluetooth
a pilot can instruct a cluster of flying
drones a terrestrial vehicles to move in
a certain direction
spread out over a larger area or circle
around a specific target to date one
subject has been able to control as many
as four drones inside of the lab are

Timaeus said the project will soon move
to a 5,000 square foot facility where
researchers hope to increase the number
220 and eventually into the hundreds
it’s a matter of getting good signals
with cheap and portable electrodes
once you have this you can definitely do
this outdoors if you want our tamiya de
said
before you picture x-men style warfare
are to my eldest said he does not expect
mind control to completely replace
pilots joysticks and computers at least
for the time being controlling robots
completely with one’s mind requires a
high degree of concentration that may be
difficult to conjure on the battlefield
but hard to my decided they’re
ultimately maybe applications beyond
defense such as humanitarian aid
distribution package delivery for search
and rescue operations
we are adding more degrees of freedom
and more capabilities

he said
copyright 2016 the washington post
this story has not been edited by NDTV
staff and is auto-generated from a
syndicated feed
ok




ASU researcher controls multiple drones with his mind