The Spybot You Can Control With Your Mind

Exercise some REAL control

Sighted online: a WowWee Rovio mobile spy robot controlled by a headset that reads brain waves. The headset is an EPOC from Emotiv systems, and features 14 electrodes designed to convert mind power into digitized control signals. It also detects head movements through a built-in gyroscope.

The control scheme is relatively simple. The user clenches the left side of his jaw to make the Rovio rotate left, and the right side to make robot go the other way. Tilting the head up directs the mobile spy to put its camera arm up; a head tilting down makes the Rovio put the arm down. To make the robot move forward, the user has to concentrate and generate a worry/sad feeling. Cruise control kicks in after a second, freeing the user to direct the robot in motion through the other actions listed above.

That emotion-based forward control is weird, and mind-controlled robotics isn't exactly new. Yet the system is potentially easy to replicate for DIYers. RoboClient, free software that runs on Windows, detects brainwaves from the headset and converts into signals sent to the Rovio through the Skype interface. Full details are available through the link below.

All we need is a manufacturer to modify the system into a consumer-friendly package. Making the average customer use their brain more is probably a good thing anyway.

Programming Your Own Thought-Controlled Robot