Paralysed man moves in mind-reading exoskeleton

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-49907356

by pmoriarty • 7 years ago

214 51 7 years ago

bbc.co.uk

I worked in a lab over the summer to develop non-invasive methods to give quadriplegics control over a robotic arm. Although implants have a ways to go, this development is encouraging. I'm excited to see where this technology will go, hopefully it will lead to giving quadriplegics more autonomy in their lives.

ilaksh• 7 years ago

Are you familiar with Neuralink? They showed a video with like 1000 connections.. vastly more than this example.

Tepix• 7 years ago

They have 64 connections but use only 32 due to limited computational power.

vegetablepotpie4• 7 years ago

Yes, it’s really interesting and my futurist friend theorizes about the possibilities when we hike. The neuroscientists I work with are skeptical of Neuralink because there isn’t a precedent to do invasive surgeries on healthy patients. I hope the company is successful, their work will teach us a lot about the brain. We’re trying less invasive, non surgical methods, to control appendages that we anticipate will be cheaper and lower risk.

foobiekr• 7 years ago

How are implants doing with regard to long life? Scar tissue seems to be a problem.

WMCRUN• 7 years ago

New electrodes are much thinner, and some are designed to prevent this.

epiphanitus• 7 years ago

Have you guys published a paper yet? I am fascinated by the subject and am really curious how you did it.

vegetablepotpie4• 7 years ago

I’m working on a case study of the project that I’m going to submit to a journal with my professor.

Basically our approach is to use eeg, eye movements and head movements to let patients control an arm with the goal of making them more independent.

clay_the_ripper• 7 years ago

“But when he thinks "walk", it sets off a chain of instructions to move his legs”

Not to poo poo this achievement but the ability to imitate a single, non-specific command with a brain implant has been around for years (decades?) now. Sounds like He is issuing a single command and then “walk” command is controlled by the computer. Not as though he is independently moving each leg. Still cool, if not as groundbreaking as it may seem.

icebraining2• 7 years ago

While full control is obviously better for some things, I wonder if overall this isn't better. It would reduce the training from having to adapt your brain to control a foreign body, to just issuing simpler commands, and might be safer too. Imagine using Atlas[1] as the exoskeleton, you just think about going forward and it navigates the terrain for you.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LikxFZZO2sk

ufmace• 7 years ago

It seems like you'd lose a ton of utility like that. How cold you maneuver in tight spaces without the ability to move each leg/foot in a particular way and put the in a particular place? Much less run, jump, dance, play sports, etc.

radarsat1• 7 years ago

So you didn't read the rest of the article?

Here are some quotes for you so you don't have to:

    "it is a marked advance on similar approaches that allow people to control a single limb with their thoughts."

    "And he can control each of the arms, manoeuvring them in three-dimensional space"

    "It took a lot longer to learn how to control the arms.
    
    'It was very difficult because it is a combination of multiple muscles and movements. This is the most impressive thing I do with the exoskeleton.'"

    "In tasks where Thibault had to touch specific targets by using the exoskeleton to move his upper and lower arms and rotate his wrists, he was successful 71% of the time."

    "There are also plans to develop finger control to allow Thibault to pick up and move objects."

So they specifically address your point and show advances beyond previous successes in the field.

pweezy• 7 years ago

It must feel odd and incredibly difficult to control an exoskeleton (or any motion restoring device) without any proprioceptive or tactile feedback. I imagine it's like having someone else move your limbs, or for a paraplegic, like using your arms to move your legs.

If we find a way to trigger those sensations, perhaps with separate brain implants, it would be a huge breakthrough and make learning to control the device much faster.

I'm sure that's far from an easy task, though.

jacobush• 7 years ago

If you have touch sense left on a piece of skin, maybe not. An actuator matrix on a piece of skin should work, taking advantage of neuroplasticity. (There was a similar device "projecting" a camera image on the tongue? with electricity.)

bobbygoodlatte• 7 years ago

You might enjoy this TED talk from last year from Hugh Herr. He and MIT developed an interface that allows proprioceptive sense in a bionic limb. Pretty wild stuff. https://www.ted.com/talks/hugh_herr_how_we_ll_become_cyborgs...

Intermernet• 7 years ago

I love Hugh Herr. I first encountered him in the 90s when he was doing custom prosthetics for rock climbing and then I lost track of his work. Next thing I know he's doing stuff like the talk you linked to. He's truly inspirational, and humbling in what he achieves.

yomly• 7 years ago

Dunno - we're very good at filling in the gaps

I remember when playing the original PS3 my brain was imaging vibrations in the controller when the screen rumbled (back when the original controllers had no haptic feedback)

Obviously it would be better to provide more feedback but I am bullish on humans being able to adapt and the brain finding means of "faking" feedback or finding second order proxies

laumars2• 7 years ago

Obviously it would be better to provide more feedback but I am bullish on humans being able to adapt and the brain finding means of "faking" feedback or finding second order proxies

I couldn't see that happening in the same way as your anecdote. We use touch sensation for more than just an accompaniment to visual clues:

* It's used as a pressure feedback, eg knowing how tightly to grip an object so that we don't crush it nor let it slip from our fingers

* It's used to identify dangers, like sharp objects or extreme temperatures

* Plus we use it an awful lot to for feedback on stuff we're not even looking at (eg touch typing, using in car controls while driving, getting in and out of bed when tired, blowing our nose, etc)

I'm sure some of that last point could be resolved if we learn to rely on muscle memory with the loss of any tactile feedback but the former two points would be harder to workaround without it said feedback.

Also, if you can excuse the nitpick (fellow retro gamer here) but...

I remember when playing the original PS3...(back when the original controllers had no haptic feedback)

I assume you mean "original Playstation"? The PS3 definitely had a rumble unit built in.

velox_io• 7 years ago

It's not so different from an electric wheelchair, the major difference is that your eye-line isn't crotch height. Plus, there's no reason they cannot add some type of haptic feedback. It doesn't even need to be natural or realistic as the body/ brain will adjust.

I'm a disabled person myself (I prefer to use crutches as the world isn't built for wheelchairs, that's another topic). I've been injured since 2012 and they now feel like an extension of myself (a little like having really long arms, I use them to push buttons/ switches and grab stuff). Now trying to walk without them feels VERY alien (and I often fall over if I put too much weight on my injured leg). With crutches; I walk faster than most people (they have suspension!), can climb stairs easier than somebody who is obese, even on days I can't even put my foot on the ground let alone weight-bear. The biggest limitation is the lack of hands to carry stuff.

The point I was making is that while aids/ devices may seem primitive and a poor substitute for what they're trying to replace, the difference they can make to an individual can be huge!

Repairing nerve damage is one of the last frontiers of modern medicine, but it is advancing, slowly...

PetitPrince• 7 years ago

Original paper: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laneur/article/PIIS1474-4...

avar3• 7 years ago

Is there a reason to make these sorts of exoskeletons human-shaped for the purposes of helping the disabled?

Isn't it easier to make something like a centaur where there's a second set of rear legs? That would also lower the center of gravity since the backpack on this one could be the "torso" on the centaur. Balancing something on four legs is also much simpler.

That sort of platform could also trivially turn into a wheeled vehicle by having sets of wheels on each of the four legs that could rotate into place. That would be much more power-efficient than walking in most urban settings.

Roritharr• 7 years ago

I imagine something on the basis of Boston Dynamics Big Dog would also be a perfect fit, while culturally extremely jarring to watch.

rorykoehler• 7 years ago

The world is designed for humans so it's probably easier to adapt to the environment rather than the other way around.

Drakim• 7 years ago

This is also why human-shaped robots will be a lot more useful than centaur-shaped robot. Your human-shaped robot can carry a package and use a normal sized elevator to deliver it to the top floor. It can drive your old school gas car. It can fit wherever humans can fit.

TuringTest• 7 years ago

Standing on two feet gives an impression of a self-supporting body.

Having a support at the back would give the impression that the body is transported by a forklift.

It's irrational, but we know how the irrational deeply affects human relations. Think how accepted are those "telepresence robots" that go around campuses looking like a TV set hooked up to a vacuum cleaner (hint: they're creepy). You don't want to make the same impression.

pjc50• 7 years ago

If it's under neural control, it's going to be much easier for a human to learn to walk again on two legs than it is on four.

probably_wrong• 7 years ago

My guess is that it's not only about "external" improvement but also "internal".

Externally, your centaur design is more stable and probably easier to design. It would also allow you to do some (highly specific) tasks that a boring, two-legged human could not do. Like Aimee Mullins said in her TED talk[1], this would make you not so much "disabled", but rather "super-abled".

Internally, however, you also want those using the exoskeleton to regain their feeling of belonging. That is, you don't want the to "just" walk - you also want them to walk exactly like everybody else. To quote from this book [2],

"You don’t always feel inferior, mostly just out of place. Sometimes though, you feel a pang in your chest, a bit like a short, sharp stab. You know what it is instantly…

It's there to remind you – you’ll never be quite the same, never on the same level, you’ll never have quite the same opportunities, the same privileges, the experiences and the rites of passages everyone else takes for granted.

(...) Like when you go shopping and people stare. Funny thing is, you get used to this one over time, it affects you far less than it does your friends. They hate it and stare back or make comments – “why are people so rude, you’re not a circus animal?”. You feel like saying “actually, I am” but it wouldn’t help, you just want to shop."

[1] http://www.ted.com/talks/aimee_mullins_prosthetic_aesthetics

[2] https://disabilityhorizons.com/2015/09/the-truth-about-being...

avar3• 7 years ago

I'm not bound to a wheelchair, so maybe I'm full of it, but I'd think the feeling of not belonging among paraplegics has to do with not being able to fully partake in society.

Go to a party and your default is to make eye contact with people's crotches and them literally looking down on you (dumb as it is, this is important to us social primates), a simple set of stairs being an insurmountable obstacle, being excluded from "able-bodied" activities etc.

As compared with being in a centaur suit, now you're a superhero. "Hey Bob, you can lift half a ton, can you help me with this?". Making good fun of your out of shape "able-bodied" buddies on a hike as you carry all their backpacks on your back etc.

Of course much of that could also be said about a bipedal suit, but those are presumably harder to develop, and need to be more compact, so power storage is more of an issue, and can't as naturally transition to wheeled travel without all the issues with a Segway. It would be unfortunate to delay deployment of these systems because of some perceived prejudice against four or eight-legged systems.

People at the supermarket already wear what could be called "unnatural" partial exoskeletons today. They're just called wheelchairs or mobility scooters, I don't see how a working legged contraption that doesn't pass for vanilla human when clothed would make much of a difference.

dougmwne• 7 years ago

From the article, this man has already used his implant to control his wheelchair, which already has vastly more public infrastructure to support it than a centaur.

aurbano2• 7 years ago

This is absolutely mind blowing!

Although I can't help but nitpick on this:

What do experts think?
Prof Tom Shakespeare, from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine [...]

How is a professor in a Hygiene and Tropical Medicine school relevant? I feel like if you're going to get an expert's opinion you should at least find someone in a related field, like a neurosurgeon or neuroscientist...

gadders• 7 years ago

He's a wheelchair user, if that makes any difference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Shakespeare

//edit// He is also currently Professor of Disability Research in the medical faculty at the University of East Anglia (UEA) and a member of the Nuffield Council on Bioethics.

aurbano2• 7 years ago

That makes a lot more sense - they should probably include those credentials instead of the place where he teaches, the way it is written now makes it seem like he isn't a subject matter expert...

mantap• 7 years ago

It's not just a school of hygiene and tropical medicine. It's their name. Just like MIT doesn't only offer degrees in technology.

dcminter• 7 years ago

LSHTM is a medical research university (with an archaic name), so this is probably the right affiliation to cite but being general news content on the BBC I agree that they should have qualified that for the wider audience.

aiexplorations• 7 years ago

I'm guessing that there are some ideas from signal processing and statistical learning at use here for enabling the robotics behind the prosthetics. Would anyone happen to have a good reference or article that illustrates how this kind of interface is built?

ryanmercer• 7 years ago

The first thing that came to mind "Dead or alive, you're coming with me!".

I love seeing the science fiction of my youth starting to become a reality, obviously this is a far cry form Robocop but it's still a very impressive enabling technology.

Some years ago (5~) the Indiana State Museum had a Star Wars exhibit with a display of various prosthetic devices both from the Star Wars franchise and real life with video clips playing at several of them. One of the clips was a man talking about how he invented the prosthetic on display as a direct result of watching Luke get his new hand as a kid and wanting to make it a reality. That kinda stuff is awesome.

HNLurker2• 7 years ago

I had a friend who tried to kill himself and instead was paralyzed from waist down from jumping from building (3th floor I remember or something). This is hopeful

midnitewarrior• 7 years ago

Is this the RoboCop prequel?

ubermonkey• 7 years ago

I can't believe Ctrl-F "scalzi" didn't turn up a reference to LOCK-IN.

eeZah7Ux• 7 years ago

On a side note, it's amazing how difficult it is to interface directly with the human brain.

We can place 300 million transistors on a squared millimeter of silicon.

Yet, when interfacing with neurons we can barely achieve dozens of usable contact points over a very large area.

robofanatic• 7 years ago

Surprised that no one raised privacy issues. Now technology can eavesdrop on what I am thinking? Give me a break!

erikig• 7 years ago

This seems like a great use case for a variant of Boston Dynamic's Atlas robot especially given that robots ability to self balance, handle obstacles and even do parkour.

mschuetz• 7 years ago

I can't wait for exoskeletons in entertainment and recreation. Imagine sumo, rugby, boxing, etc with actual superhumans powered by exoskeletons. Traffic jams on Mt Everest are going to be weird. Construction is going to be a lot more productive.

I'm confident it will be the "next big thing" at some point, maybe 10-30 years.

peterwoerner• 7 years ago

BMW is already using them for factory workers:

https://exoskeletonreport.com/2017/03/mw-group-harnesses-the...

MiddleEndian• 7 years ago

Eventually MMA and BattleBots will converge into one super sport!

Paralysed man moves in mind-reading exoskeleton

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