Researchers Revamp Asimo Robot's BMI Technology
From: Tech-On! - 10/22/2010
By:Tomonori Shindou 

Researchers at Japan's National Institute of Information and Communications
Technology (NICT) and Advanced Telecommunications Research Institute
International have developed brain machine interface (BMI) technology that
can continuously estimate the movements of a user's finger and reproduce them
by noninvasively measuring their brain activity. "Because the latest BMI
technology can smoothly reconfigure rapid movements, it gives the user a
feeling of controlling a robot by himself," says NICT's Hiroshi Imamizu. The
BMI technology combines an electroencephalograph with a high-time resolution
and a near-infrared brain measurement device. The researchers also combined a
magnetoencephalograph (MEG) with high-time resolution and functional magnetic
resonance imaging with a high spatial resolution. The system learns from the
data collected from 200 rounds of fingertip movements per user. Based on the
MEG data, the current is estimated at 1,500 current sources, which are
virtually and evenly arranged on the surface of the brain. To use the latest
BMI technology, the user has to actually move a finger, but the researchers
aim to develop BMI technology that can be used just by imagining a movement. 

Read the entire article at:
http://techon.nikkeibp.co.jp/english/NEWS_EN/20101022/186760/

Links:
Movie
http://techon.nikkeibp.co.jp/article/NEWS/20101020/186669/Movie_01.mpg

Honda Announces Brain-controlled Asimo Robot
http://techon.nikkeibp.co.jp/english/NEWS_EN/20090401/168117/

Hiroshi Imamizu
http://www.cns.atr.jp/~imamizu/