By Sara Goudarzi, LiveScience Staff Writer

Scientists have created a way to control a robot with signals from a human brain.

By generating the proper brainwaves-picked up by a cap with electrodes that sense the signals and reflect a person's instructions-scientists can instruct a humanoid robot to move to specific locations and pick up certain objects.

The commands are limited to moving forward, picking up one of two objects and bringing it to one of two locations. The researchers have achieved 94 percent accuracy between the thought commands and the robot's movements.

"This is really a proof-of-concept demonstration," "It suggests that one day we might be able to use semi-autonomous robots for such jobs as helping disabled people or performing routine tasks in a person's home."

The person wearing the electrode cap watches the robot's movement on a computer screen through two cameras installed on and above the robot.

When the robot's camera sees the objects that are to be picked up, it passes on the information to the user's computer screen. Each object lights up randomly on the computer screen. When a person wants something picked up and it happens to light up, the brain registers surprise and sends this brain activity to the computer and then to the robot as the choice object. The robot then proceeds to pick up the object.

http://www.livescience.com/technology/061215_humanoid_robot.html