Recently experts in robotics from Israel has developed a way to control the movements of the robot with only "power of thought". It is based on the well-known method of functional magnetic resonance imaging, which allows to determine the activity of one or another region of the brain under the influence of various external factors.

Currently robots that cannot act independently, usually operate by means of a special touch panels and joysticks. This is done so - to-device joins the system, able to perceive the movement of the fingers of the operator, and after wirelessly mechanism receives a specific command. Such a method of controlling all good, but there is one "but": options for the movement of hands, not so much. Therefore, to generate a complex command with the operator will not work.

At the same time now in many States, the development of robotics got to the point that production mechanisms capable of very complex motion ceased to be technically impossible. Moreover, such robots is well needed - for example, in rescue operations in areas where erupted natural disaster, in exploration in extreme conditions (for example, during the expeditions to other planets, and to the conduct of hostilities. And, oddly enough, machines, not possessing full autonomy, and acting in close contact with a human operator, in these situations are preferable.

The reason is that Autonomous Android has sufficiently complex and massive "brain center", as well as many sensors. All this makes it more vulnerable - the slightest failure in the "brain" robot makes it practically unpredictable behavior. In addition, as you know, complex computer requires and complicated, which is also much more common network failures. Finally, there is a danger "hacking" and reprogramming Autonomous mechanism and to counter this, if the operator does not control his "ward" in real time, almost impossible.

Therefore partially Autonomous robot in some cases turns out to be far more profitable. But the question is how to make so that the operator could give him enough complex commands? And recently, experts from the University of Bar-Ilan, Israel) under the General guidance of Professor ori Cohen could offer the original solution of this problem. They have developed a device that allows you to control the behavior of robots using what is called "power of thought".

In the basis of this development is one of the methods of medical diagnostics called functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). It is used to change the characteristics of magnetic fields the surface of the head to catch changes in blood flow in the vessels of the brain caused by neural activity. Also using fMRI can determine the activity of one or another region of the brain under the influence of various external factors.

In fact, already repeatedly used fMRI experiments, allowing "to read the thoughts", that is, to record changes in neural activity when the man showed a particular picture or said different words. Now the scientists decided to try to install "telepathic" communication between the robot and the operator. In their stated experiments using fMRI tracked the blood flow in the brain responsible for movement. In the end, the Israeli student Tirosh Shapiro, who played the role of the operator, imagined that he's moving in, and "a ward" robot, receiving signals from the fMRI scanner, which was transmitted wirelessly, reproduced conceived by human movement.

Actually, the task of Shapiro at first was very simple - to make located at a distance from him robot approached as close as possible. With her robot coped fairly quickly. After the experiment has complicated - now the Android had to chase your operator, which moved through a rather complicated trajectory within the laboratory. This part of the experiments was brilliant too. At the final stage, the robot had to alternate the movement of the arms, legs and torso while walking. And here we had some difficulties.

The thing is that although information from a camera mounted in the robot's head, immediately transferred to the operator, and he was thus able to control everything, but some of motion of the robot did still delayed. When analyzing the progress of the experiment it was found that there was to blame FOR Android - the fact that the definition of motion "brain center" robot always occurred some time after the operator started to think about it. However, this problem was sorted out quickly - in control experiments Shapiro started to think about the desired movement with some anticipation. And then the robot has fulfilled all the time.

In addition, it was observed that, oddly enough, effective cooperation has been impeded because the robot was much lower than the operator, the latter was of average human height, but the height of the robot was only 80 centimeters. A series of calculations showed that the robot becomes more manageable if its growth is the same as the operator. So now, the researchers want to repeat the experiments with Android KAWADA HRP-4, which reaches a height of one meter seventy centimeters.

So, this technique, which is very similar to "Dyad"(the way of interaction between the robot and the man described by Daniel Wilson in a fantasy novel "Robopocalypse", in Russian translation - "Robots of the Apocalypse"), was tested successfully. The researchers noted that since the reaction in brain cells is significantly faster than fingers, and available to the complexity of movements, implemented under the management of potentially much higher, operators can now get the robots to perform movements of almost any complexity. And this opens new prospects for remote-controlled robots, and for UAV and various military applications.

Recently, the U.S. Agency DARPA said about the interest in "autorepoman" management systems humanoid fighting robots, capable of applying firearms. It is therefore possible that the achievement of Israeli engineers will soon be able to attract the attention of the Pentagon. And if that happens, then over time of the armies of the leading countries of the world will begin to disappear people as active participants in hostilities. To fight each other will be robots and operators from afar, standing in the safety zone - manage them with "telepathy"...