Mind-controlled drones show off

latest in brain tech

Billed as a world 1st, 16 people race aerial

vehicles piloted by their thought

The Associated Press...

A University of Florida student uses a headset

that interfaces with her brain to fly a drone during

a competition in Gainesville, Fla., last weekend.

Experts warn that there are ethical concerns with

brain-controlled interfaces. Jason Dearen/

Associated Press

Wearing black headsets with tentacle-like sensors

stretched over their foreheads, the competitors

stare at cubes floating on computer screens as

their small white drones prepare for takeoff.

"Three, two, one ... go!" the announcer hollers,

and as the racers fix their thoughts on pushing

the cubes, the drones suddenly whir, rise and

buzz through the air. Some struggle to move even

a few feet, while others zip confidently across the

finish line.

The competition — billed as the world's first

drone race involving a brain-controlled interface,

or BCI — involved 16 pilots using willpower to

drive drones through a 10-metre dash over an

indoor basketball court at the University of Florida

last weekend.

Organizers hope to make the event an annual

inter-university spectacle, involving ever-more

dynamic moves and challenges and a trophy that

puts the brain on a pedestal.

"With events like this, we're popularizing the use

of BCI instead of it being stuck in the research

lab," said Chris Crawford, a PhD student in

human-centred computing.

"BCI was a technology that was geared

specifically for medical purposes, and in order to

expand this to the general public, we actually

have to embrace these consumer-brand devices

and push them to the limit."

Brainwave detection

Scientists have been able to detect brainwaves

for more than a century, and mind-controlled

technology already is helping paralyzed people

move limbs or robotic prosthetics. But now the

technology is becoming widely accessible. Emotiv

and NeuroSky are among startups offering

electroencephalogram headsets for purchase

online for several hundred dollars. The models

Florida racers used cost about $500 US each.

Here's how the technology delivers an abstract

thought through the digital realm and into the

real world: Each EEG headset is calibrated to

identify the electrical activity associated with

particular thoughts in each wearer's brain —

recording, for example, where neurons fire when

the wearer imagines pushing a chair across the

floor. Programmers write code to translate these

"imaginary motion" signals into commands that

computers send to the drones.

Professor Juan Gilbert, whose computer science

students organized the race, is inviting other

universities to assemble brain-drone racing

teams for 2017, pushing interest in a technology

with a potential that seems limited only by the

human imagination.

As our lives become increasingly reliant on

internet-enabled devices, a concept known as the

internet of things, Gilbert and his team want to

know how mind-controlled devices can expand

and change the way we play, work and live.

You might use your mind to unlock your car, or

explore a virtual world, hands-free. It could be

applied for real-time monitoring of our moods and

states of consciousness. Researchers are

studying whether they can use a big-rig driver's

mind to trigger a device that will tell him when

he's too tired to drive.

"One day you could wear a brain-controlled

interface device like you wear a watch, to interact

with things around you," Gilbert said.

Ethical concerns

So far, BCI research has largely been about

helping disabled people regain freedom of

movement. Recently, an Ohio man using only his

thoughts was able to move his paralyzed hand

thanks to a chip implanted in his brain. In Miami,

doctors using BCI are helping a 19-year-old man

stand on his own after losing the use of his legs

in a motorcycle accident.

But as the technology moves toward wider

adoption, ethical, legal and privacy questions

remain unresolved.

The U.S. Defence Department — which uses

drones to kill suspected militants in the Middle

East from vast distances — is looking for military

brain-control applications. A 2014 Defence

Department grant supports the Unmanned

Systems Laboratory at the University of Texas,

San Antonio, where researchers have developed a

system enabling a single person with no prior

training to fly multiple drones simultaneously

through mind control.

In this system, instead of the pilot thinking

certain thoughts to move the drones, she looks at

a screen with flickering signals, triggering brain

activity that translates into specific movements.

"It can accommodate lots of commands, much

more than imaginary motion can," UT scientist

Yufei Huang said.

But enthusiasts should think carefully before

handing over their brainwaves for purposes that

have yet to be conceived or contained, said Kit

Walsh, a staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier

Foundation with a degree in neuroscience from

MIT.

"EEG readings are similar to fingerprints: Once I

know what the readings look like from your brain

in a certain situation," she said. "I'll be able to

recognize you by that pattern again later on."