Now You Can Fly Drone Swarm Using Your Thoughts

This post is also available in: עברית (Hebrew)

A brain-computer interface will enable a person to control everything from a drone swarm to an advanced fighter jet using nothing but their thoughts and a special brain chip. The basic principle of flying a plane using a surgically implanted microchip was already demonstrated previously, but continued development of the brain-computer interface (BCI) has created a two-way connection enabling the pilot to not only send commands to the craft but also to receive signals.

The development has been created by the US military’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). A 2012 grant provided DARPA with $4 million to build a non-invasive “synthetic telepathy” interface that uses a skin-tight cap loaded with electroencephalogram (EEG) sensors to pick up electrical signals in the user’s brain’s motor centers.

In April 2016, developers at the University of Florida working under DARPA’s aegis held the first BCI drone race in history. Working with colleagues at the University of Arizona, they have been pioneering the partnership between BCI piloting and the Pentagon’s Gremlin drone swarm concept, according to sputniknews.com.

“We started with the idea of human-swarm interaction; we record it from the brain,” Panagiotis Artemiadis, director of the Human-Oriented Robotics and Control Lab at ASU said. “We actually saw that the brain really cares about collective behaviors of swarms, and now we know where to record from and what to see from the brain signals in order to decode that to collective behaviors for aerial vehicles and swarms of robots.”

Possible applications can be medical breakthroughs in brain-based communication, control of prosthetic limbs, memory repair and helping paralyzed people regain control over their bodies, according to defenseone.com.

“As of today, signals from the brain can be used to command and control… not just one aircraft but three simultaneous types of aircraft,” Justin Sanchez, director of DARPA’s biological technology office, said. “The signals from those aircraft can be delivered directly back to the brain so that the brain of that user [or pilot] can also perceive the environment,” In essence, it’s the difference between having a brain joystick and having a real telepathic conversation with multiple jets or drones about what’s going on, what threats might be flying over the horizon, and what to do about them.