The U.S. Military Is Working on Mind-Control for Drones
The U.S. Military Is
Working on Mind-Control for Drones
But a direct man-machine
interface is a long way off.
by David Axe October 12,
2018
The U.S. Defense Advanced Research
Projects Agency has tested an implant that allows an operator to simultaneously
control, with their mere thoughts, up to three unmanned aerial vehicles.
The technology could one
day lead to a direct interface between human beings and UAVs.
But full mind-control for
drones is still a long way off. Loosely controlling one small UAV is one thing.
Directly controlling several sophisticated drones, with full two-way
communication, is quite another.
The mind-control trials
took place in Pittsburgh between June 2016 and January 2017, according to
DARPA. Using what the agency called a “bidirectional neural interface,” a
volunteer named Nathan Copeland was able to simultaneously steer a simulated
lead UAV and maintain formation of two additional simulated aircraft in a
flight simulator, said Tim Kilbride, a DARPA spokesperson.
Copeland, who is partially
paralyzed, never actually steered a real drone using only his thoughts.
Instead, he channeled his thoughts through a medical implant embedded in his
skull, which used electroencephalogram, or EEG, to interface with a computer
simulation of a drone navigating an obstacle course, all while two robotic
wingmen trailed behind it.
“Nathan’s task was to
exercise vertical and lateral control to fly the lead aircraft through a series
of hoops positioned in the center of the screen, while also maintaining/correcting
the lateral course of the two support aircraft through their own hoops
positioned in shifting locations at the top of the screen,” Kilbride explained.
DARPA’s tech translates
specific thoughts into code that a drone can understand. The drone in turn can
scan its environment, detect an obstacle and alert the operator. The operator’s
brain translates the drone’s return signal as a “haptic response.” In other
words, a strong feeling.
With today’s tech it’s
only possible for a user to vaguely communicate with one drone at a time. And
that’s not the tech’s only problem.
“The big challenge is
you’re talking about interfacing with the human brain—that’s not a trivial
thing,” said Bradley Greger, a neural engineer at Arizona State University.
“It’s a big deal to implant something into the brain.”
DARPA is trying to
minimize that risk. In February 2016 the agency announced the first successful
tests, on animals, of a tiny sensor that travels through blood vessels, lodges
in the brain and records neural activity.
The so-called “stentrode,”
a combination stent and electrode, could help researchers solve one of the most
vexing problems with human-drone interfacing. How to insert a transmitter into
someone’s brain without also drilling a hole in their head.
But even a noninvasive
interface could run up against a major obstacle. “The other big challenge is
the management and interpretation of the huge amounts of information you get,”
Greger said. “You’d need a Google-level I.T. structure to manage and process
it.”
If and when it reliably
works, the drone-brain interface could have profound implications for the
world’s air forces. UAV crews would no longer need to sit in trailers, stare at
screens and operate their machines using joysticks and keyboards. They could
just think. And their drones would obey.
This first appeared in WarIsBoring here.
Comments
Post a Comment