The new virtual helmet will allow you to place electrodes and control robots and other equipment with “mind power” without needing to lubricate your head with wet gels. Reported by the American Chemical Society.
In recent years, scientists have been able to monitor the state of the brain using electroencephalography. While you can control the computer screen or the movements of the robot by taking these indicators, the highest efficiency is achieved when the electrodes are placed inside the skull. This is inconvenient for obvious reasons, so scientists would have to try to place electrodes on the skin, but the head would have to be lubricated with a conductive gel for good contact.
Now Francesca Jakopi and her colleagues have created a “dry” sensor for reading brain signals in the future, whose efficiency is not inferior to the “wet” one. It is based on polycrystalline graphene and the electrodes are molded into three-dimensional shapes to maximize skin contact. Among the shapes tested, the hexagonal pattern worked best on the wavy hairy surface of the occiput, the area at the base of the head where the visual cortex is located. The scientists incorporated eight of these sensors into an elastic headband that keeps them on the back of the head. Combined with an augmented reality headset that displayed visual cues, the electrodes could identify which cues were currently being displayed. After calibrating the system, this headband could read signals that the computer converted into commands for the quadrupedal robot.
While the new electrodes don’t yet work as well as wet sensors, the authors hope that with further improvement they can create a full-fledged helmet that doesn’t require gel for communication with the brain.