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Brain power puts wheels in motion

(China Daily)
Updated: 2009-06-30 08:51

TOKYO: Toyota Motor Corp. says it has developed a way of steering a wheelchair by just detecting brain waves, without the person having to move a muscle or shout a command.

Japan's research laboratory Riken researcher Choi Kyuwan displays a prototype electric powered wheelchair controled by brain-wave analysis. [Agencies]

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Toyota's system, developed in a collaboration with researchers in Japan, is among the fastest in the world in analyzing brain waves, it said in a release Monday.

Past systems required several seconds to read brain waves, but the new technology requires only 125 milliseconds.

The person in the wheelchair wears a cap that reads brain signals, which are relayed to a brain scan electroencephalograph on the electrically powered wheelchair, and then analyzed in a computer program.

Research into mobility is part of Toyota's larger strategy to go beyond automobiles in helping people get around in new ways.

The new system allows the person on the wheelchair to turn left or right and go forward. Coming to a stop requires the person in the wheelchair to puff up a cheek, which is picked up in a detector worn on the face.

Japanese rival Honda Motor Co is also working on a system to connect the monitoring of brain waves with mechanical moves. Neither company said it had any plans to turn the technology into a product for commercial sale as each said they are still developing the research.

AP