Surrogate Robots To Become Part of Human Race

The team of researchers are now working on ways to make the man-machine link more sensitive, allowing people to speak through a robot.  They plan on using FMRI machine which scans the brains and displays the activity in real time. 

Most of us would be awe struck on hearing that we can now control robots. You can make a robot move by monitoring thoughts about movements.

The team of researchers are now working on ways to make the man-machine link more sensitive, allowing people to speak through a robot.  They plan on using FMRI machine which scans the brains and displays the activity in real time. These FMRI monitor the blood flowing through the brain and this assists in detecting the areas associated to a particular action.

This new invention comes as a boon to patients who are paralyzed or people unable to interact with world due to certain syndrome. With the help of this surrogate body they can now interact with the world.

According to Abderrahmane Kheddar at the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology in Japan, "The ultimate goal is to create a surrogate, like in Avatar, although that's a long way off yet.

What is even more interesting is that the one, who is controlling the robot, could also see through the eyes of his electronic surrogate.

This new creation is a new approach and one step ahead of Teleoperated robots that have been operational since decades. The researchers are making us feel that the thing we are embodying is a part of us.

In order to put into practise their new invention, the researchers with the International virtual Embodiment and Robotic Re-embodiment project used FMRI to scan the university student as he imagined moving different parts of his body. This student received several stages of training from the researchers from Bar-IIan University in Israel. The student during his training attempted to direct a virtual avatar by considering bringing in some movements in his hands or legs.  These commands were signalled via internet to small robot at the Béziers Technology Institutein France. The FMRI scanner quickly measured the blood flow to his brain. Based on this, the team created an algorithm to distinguish between each thought of movement.

The next step for the research is to refine it to use a different type of scanning that can work using a skull cap rather than an FMRI machine that a person has to lie in. The robot used to represent a human is to be upgraded to a version that has a similar stature and gait to a real person.

The aim of this research is to link people and surrogate in both virtual environments and the real world.