No. 141: Technology to measure the condition of the brain to control a robot (August 23, 2010)

A research team led by Masahiro Nakagawa, a professor of Nagaoka University of Technology in Niigata Prefecture, developed the technology to measure such human sensitivity as delight and anger with the help of light, and control a robot based on the measured human sensitivity. The research team already developed the technology to measure human sensitivity using human brain wave to control a robot, but the newly-developed technology is characteristically less affected by electrical noise. For the measurement of sensitivity, the technology uses optical topography equipment that examines brain’s activity condition by dint of far-red light. It examines the concentration of oxygenated hemoglobin and reduced hemoglobin in the blood when human is in delight or in anger. Based on the concentration, it reads the patterns of sensitivity and digitalizes them. It takes only about one minute to obtain data for a pattern of sensitivity. The robot is given instructions beforehand depending on the sensitivity, such as “Raise a hand in the case of delight” and “Put a hand on the hip in the case of the anger.” Related web page: http://pelican.nagaokaut.ac.jp/