• Scientists have come up with a new brain-computer interface reading people’s thoughts in real time to correct robotic errors.
• This advance may lead to safer self driving cars. Existing brain-computer interfaces need people to train with it and even learn to modulate their thoughts to help the machine understand.
• By relying on brain signals called “error-related potentials” (ErrPs) that occur automatically when humans make a mistake or spot someone else making one, the new approach allows even complete novices to control a robot with their minds.
• This technology developed by researchers at the Boston University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
• It may offer intuitive and instantaneous ways of communicating with machines, for applications as diverse as supervising factory robots to controlling robotic prostheses.
• Researchers collected electroencephalography (EEG) data from volunteers as those individuals watched a humanoid robot decide which of two objects to pick up.
• This data was analysed using machine-learning algorithms that can detect ErrPs in just 10 to 30 milliseconds.
• This means results could be fed back to the robot in real time, allowing it to correct its course midway.

Source: Indian Express