Related News

Home » World

Toyota's wheelchair brainwave

TOYOTA says it has developed a way of steering a wheelchair by detecting brain waves, without the person having to move a muscle or shout a command.

The car manufacturer's system, developed in a collaboration with researchers in Japan, is among the fastest in the world in analyzing brain waves, it said yesterday.

Past systems required several seconds to read brain waves, but the new technology requires only 125 milliseconds - or 125 thousandths of a second.

The person in the wheelchair wears a cap that can read brain signals, which are relayed to a brain scan electroencephalograph, or EEG, 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 almost instantly, according to researchers.

Coming to a stop still requires more than a thought. The person in the wheelchair must puff up a cheek, which is picked up in a detector worn on the face.

Japanese rival Honda is also working on a system to connect the monitoring of brain waves with mechanical moves.





 

Copyright © 1999- Shanghai Daily. All rights reserved.Preferably viewed with Internet Explorer 8 or newer browsers.

沪公网安备 31010602000204号

Email this to your friend