Paraplegic Jan Scheuermann now has a mind-controlled robotic arm! She can feed herself, grip objects and feel texture pic.twitter.com/ZtmLmJCRC5
— Expresso Show (@expressoshow) March 13, 2013
A mind-machine interface is a popular idea because it’s direct and you don’t need anything other than a brain to control a machine. Case in point, meet Jan Scheuermann, the quadriplegic fighter pilot.
Scheuermann signed on with DARPA in 2012 to have electrodes implanted in her brain to read her thoughts. You might remember her for controlling a robotic arm with just her mind in 2012, but Scheuermann’s gotten a bit more advanced since then.
She asked to be connected to a simulator of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, and control the simulation directly with her mind. Needless to say, she’s not a jet pilot, but she acquitted herself well on the simulator, and DARPA is curious to see how far this can go.
It’s a bigger deal beyond just the fact that Scheuermann can now target her children’s bullies with a Vulcan cannon. Even the researchers were a little surprised at how easily and directly she could control the fighter, which is both good news for more complex robot prosthetics, and bad news in the sense that even the director of DARPA is a little worried about the implications:
“In doing this work, we’ve also opened this door. We can now see a future where we can free the brain from the limitations of the human body and I think we can all imagine amazing good things and amazing potential bad things that are on the other side of that door.”
Keep in mind, this is the woman who is in charge of the military’s mad science division. Her entire job is to figure out how to crash your car remotely and make homing bullets a reality. So, if she’s worried, we probably should be too.
That said, the advances promise to restore the lives of millions, so we’re looking on the bright side. It’s just that those veterans with advanced robotic legs might also be remotely controlling tanks.