Look Ma, No Hands: Drones You Can Pilot With Your MindA Portuguese aeronautics company is testing out the technology right now.
ByNina Zipkin•
Drones you can fly only using your brain waves -- sounds like something you'd see in a sci-fi movie, right? Thanks to a Lisbon, Portugal-based aeronautics company calledTEKEVERand its BrainFlight project, that future is closer than you might think. The prospect may seem a little terrifying but really, who among us hasn't wished (or tried when you had the house to yourself) that they could move stuff with their mind?
So how does it work? The drone operator wears an electrode-covered cap that monitors electrical activity in his or her brain. The company put out astatementexplaining that "the electricity flowing through the pilot's brain acts as an input to the drone's control system, in order to perform, on the air, a mission with objectives previously defined by the research team."
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据说飞行员训练给unmanned vehicles specific and simple commands by imagining moving a dot up and down on a screen, which would then translate to the drone making a right or left turn.
公司进行了一次成功的出版ic test flight in Lisbon this week. The scientists behindthe technologyforesee it being used for more than just drones. They are thinking of using the technology to pilot larger planes and jets as well, though whether that would be allowed on the regulatory side of things is an undertaking unto itself.
But more than the cool factor of remotely flying planes, or operating a boat, car or train, TEKEVER wants to develop the technology further to potentially apply it to the making of prosthetics and generally help individuals with "with severe physical disabilities to interact with their surroundings in an easier way."
