The Robots Republic Of China
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Close your eyes and imagine the future war. Some estimations claim that in the not-so-far future robots will replace men in the battlefield and China, apparently, has decided to turn this into a reality. The People’s Liberation Army Information Engineering University is now researching ways of developing robots to replace soldiers in the battlefield, when the soldiers themselves could control those fighter robots by the power of thought alone. An experiment conducted recently by the university’s students shows that for now China is successful in turning this futuristic dream into a reality, as the experiment was declared a success.
To operate the robots, the student-soldiers put on a special helmet in which are installed tiny electrodes aimed to detect their brains’ electric activity. The electrodes on their heads are connected to a special computer that can recognize unique patterns in the brainwaves that characterize every different command. Those brainwaves are transferred as commands thought up by the operator without ever having to say anything out loud.
Once the chinese military has developed the ability to send commands by thought alone, a certain adaptation can be made to implement this development into any robotic platform – whether on ground, on water, underwater or by air. In light of this, the laboratory are simultaneously working on developing a control over unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV).
This capability is still only at its beginning and the present stage requires much concentration from the operators wearing the helmet in order for it to be able to read their brainwaves and transfer them as commands into the robot. Furthermore, an instructor at the research laboratory claims that the equippment which recognizes the “thoughts” is accurate only seventy percent of the times.
These might be just the early stages, but getting the technology to work even only several times is a significant step towards this dream, or nightmare, becoming actual reality.
