Brain Power: Toyota develops thought-controlled wheelchair
Toyota Brain Machine Interface Wheelchair – Click above for high-res image gallery
You shouldn't need Professor X-style telekinetic powers to move a wheelchair using only your mind, at least not according to Toyota. The World's Largest Automaker is busily developing its Brain Machine Interface, which uses thought-control and brain wave analysis technologies in an attempt the make life better for elderly or handicapped people.
A series of electrodes are attached to the scalp and measure the brain activities associated with certain thoughts. The BMI then displays those signals on an attached screen and can create a set of instructions that may be useful in all kinds of scenarios, including to move an electric wheelchair.
According to Toyota, the company's BMI technology has advanced to the point where it's practically instantaneous (the delay is just 125 milliseconds), is 95-percent accurate and will adapt itself to any user's thought patterns. Next logical question: How long until our cars come sans pedals and steering wheels? Thanks for the tip, FaLeX!
Gallery: Toyota BMI Wheelchair
[Source: Dawn.com | Photo by YOSHIKAZU TSUNO/AFP/Getty]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Protzenegger 4:33PM (6/29/2009)
That's effing awesome. Bravo, Toyota. Hope to see more of this.
Reply
Dustin 5:31PM (6/29/2009)
They're only a little ways behind Honda on this technology, as usual.
MachinaDC5 7:45PM (6/29/2009)
Yeah, Honda's brain-controlled wheelchair has VTEC.
JDM Life 11:05PM (6/29/2009)
@ Dustin.
Shut Up.
Tell Honda to stick to making small & slow cars. Thats what they do best.
P.V. 4:40PM (6/29/2009)
That is absolutely great, as I, uh...
...Well, now you know why I love minivans with sliding doors so much...
My respect for Toyota just increased a LOT.
Reply
P.V. 4:40PM (6/29/2009)
Grrr. My icon keeps changing back to the default one for some reason. Does anyone have a fix for this?
Taglane 5:32PM (6/29/2009)
Nope. Mine keeps changing from my Initials to a frickin wall that came from i dont know where. I just deal with it. O_o
j0nd4m4n 4:44PM (6/29/2009)
That scalp attached part really need to be polish aluminum, or better, titanium, or even better carbon fiber, or better, transparent aluminum with carbon fiber accent.
Reply
paul34 4:45PM (6/29/2009)
I wonder how this compares to the various other direct brain interface control attempst by universities and other companies for a while now. Hopefully one of them comes out on top, because as the article says, it'd give disabled people much more freedom.
At any rate, I hate to be picky peter, but what does this have to do with cars? Shouldn't this be on Engadget, your sister blog? Toyota is involved in a lot of things beyond strictly Camrys and Corollas, but you don't report on their other industries.
Reply
Ligor 5:38PM (6/29/2009)
maybe Toyota might be thinking to put this in a car so now you don't need to steer you just think it and the car goes/turn or whatever
this might be the first step towards fully removing the driver and allowing the car to drive itself. many people might except this transition step better
of course this means i'm stocking up on today's cars so I can still drive myself
henrykrinkle 4:49PM (6/29/2009)
Wow - RWD!
Reply
Rob 4:59PM (6/29/2009)
Totally not for the PC crowd, but I thought of this when I saw it:
http://madeinhead.org/anism/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/they-see-me-rollin-they-hatin.jpg
Reply
addicted2sp33d 5:00PM (6/29/2009)
One more step towards the Wall-E hover-chair!
Reply
jpm100 5:16PM (6/29/2009)
For those of you more interested in seeing this type of thing in action.
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=BCI+wheelchari&search_type=&aq=f
Reply
jeff 5:18PM (6/29/2009)
Professor X didn't have telekinetic powers, only telepathic. Jean Grey had the telekinesis going on.
Reply
groundZ 5:27PM (6/29/2009)
THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR SAYING THIS.
I couldn't even finish reading the article from being so obsessed with this.
Taglane 5:33PM (6/29/2009)
......How about better looking cars now? Just saying.
Reply
johncuyle 7:13PM (6/29/2009)
This is pretty cool. It'll be interesting to watch as they improve the tech. I'm surprised that the response times are as good as they are. 125 milliseconds isn't exactly what you'd call good latency (it becomes noticable if you have input latencies much over about half that, and a quarter of that is better) but it isn't completely awful either and I'd fully expect them to be able to improve the times with iteration.
Waiting for inevitable Toyota brain control/Honda robotics collaboration to produce mentally controlled power armor as seen in Anime.
Reply
william tell 5:51PM (6/29/2009)
doesn't Stephen hawkings already have one of these?
Reply
Tyler 6:08PM (6/29/2009)
I hope that the Prius and Camrys get a new feature: turn signal assist.
Reply