Biological Control of 1511's Robot!!

[Kims Robot]

So today I did it!! (with some help from a few awesome team members! Thanks Eric, Larry & Tommy!)

I took a Biorobotics class at RIT as part of my MSEE degree in Robotic Intelligence, for the class project we had to control an LED or some sort of actuator using a biological signal. So here is what I did...

Using three EMG signals (the electrical pulses given off when you tense a muscle) from the human arm, we were able to control three aspects of our robot's arm movement.

1. The forearm (making a tight fist), controlled the rotation of our manipulator. It only goes in one direction currently, but when you make a fist it starts the manipulator movement, and when you make a fist the second time it stops the movement. Sounds simple... but it was a lot more work than we expected!!

2. The bicep (curling the bicep tightly), activated the arm movement in an upward direction. If the bicep was curled again, it would stop the movement.

3. The tricep (straightening the arm), activated the downward movement of the arm. If the tricep was tightened again, it would stop the movement.

We got some great video of the manipulator on Larry's camera, and I will post it as soon as I can. That part worked beautifully. We are still working on getting the arm to raise and lower reliably, because on my arm I had trouble firing my bicep without my tricep.

I will be posting the paper once I have actually completed it and got it working, but if anyone has any questions, I'd be happy to answer Just wanted to celebrate a little since it was quite the process/system!

[vadyr]

That's really cool! I've always been interested in that kind of stuff. I wonder if FIRST will ever allow that kind of control, or if they already do...(off to the Big Blue Book).

[mechanicalbrain]

Uhh is this for FIRST? Also seems like it might be easier to use flex sensors. Actually this sounds exactly like a complicated slaver. Still its a very cool concept. Reminds me of this http://www.nature.com/news/2005/0509.../050926-5.html (Now if just we could get the player interface to use it... ).

[Kims Robot]

vadyr, as far as I can tell, this actually is legal. I was going to use a computer to do some of the processing, but was able to simplify and basically just use an amplifier type box. From everything I can tell about control it would be legal.

However, is it feasible?? As mechanicalbrain suggests, it would be much easier and more reliable to use a flex sensor or something else. The bio sensors are prone to all sorts of issues, and i would need to do some much higher processing to filter out all the noise. It was more for my masters class that I did this... but I intend to present it to our team

[mechanicalbrain]

Well it trully is a cool idea. Im curious about what you use to pick up the nerve signals?

[John Gutmann]

the first thing I thought about when i saw this thread and read the article in the link someone had posted, was that it is a way to make people even lazier. We can now have a segway that can be driven with out minds. Although being lazy isn't a band thing.

[Hieb]

I'm glad to see someone actually do this. I wanted to try something similar about a year ago, and then the student who was excited about the idea transferred to another school and I kind of dropped the ball after that.

Originally Posted by mechanicalbrain

Well it trully is a cool idea. I’m curious about what you use to pick up the nerve signals?

While I'm not sure what was used here, there was an article in Nuts & Volts about a year and a half ago (not sure which month) that had a circuit design for a biofeedback machine. It took the muscle signal and sent it as an analog signal to a speaker, but I think it could be easily modified to send to the OI.

Originally Posted by sparksandtabs

the first thing I thought about when i saw this thread and read the article in the link someone had posted, was that it is a way to make people even lazier. We can now have a segway that can be driven with out minds. Although being lazy isn't a band thing.

While I guess it could serve to make people lazier, the student I started working with (again, before he transferred) had brainstormed several possible uses that included things like control for a motorized wheel chair and replacing the mouse on the computer. Our focus wasn't nearly complex as detailed here, mainly the equivalent of a single axis joystick, so at the time we didn't think it would be practical for FIRST. It would be interesting to see the idea pursued.

[Kims Robot]

Originally Posted by mechanicalbrain

Well it trully is a cool idea. Im curious about what you use to pick up the nerve signals?

The sensors are basically just little electrodes that are able to detect very tiny changes in voltage. When a muscle fires, there is an electrical impulse that can be detected by the electrode. This gets sent to an amplifier box which amplifies the signal and either outputs it directly or as an RMS value.

Im not exactly sure what is in the electrodes themselves, as they are a custom built set for the RIT ISE department. But to me it appears just to be a very sensitive metal, and it doesnt seem there is much circuitry at all in the electrode itself.

[Travis Hoffman]

I recall seeing a news story on TV many moons ago about a device that enabled a person to move a mouse cursor around a computer monitor using only brain waves. Google "brain wave mouse" and you'll find a bunch of articles on this topic. It would be quite a fun project to see if a FIRST team could use this technology to *safely* and *effectively* control their robot. Talk about an attention getter if they succeeded!

As teams discover new and creative ways to control their robots, I hope the game design committee will eventually adjust their operator interface rules to safely accomodate such inventiveness. I have a feeling they'll come through.

[Kims Robot]

Cool project one of the things we had the option of trying in our biorobotics course was brainwave control. Only thing was, that it worked best when blindfolded and in a quiet room!! Obviously not reliable.

And you are right, FIRST would have to change there rules. There is not enough processing power in the IFI controller for me to use neural networks and fourier processing like I had planned. The original idea was to run it through a computer to do all the processing, but I decided on a simpler solution, but it isnt competition worthy... yet

[mechanicalbrain]

Originally Posted by Kims Robot

The sensors are basically just little electrodes that are able to detect very tiny changes in voltage. When a muscle fires, there is an electrical impulse that can be detected by the electrode. This gets sent to an amplifier box which amplifies the signal and either outputs it directly or as an RMS value.

Forgive my ignorance but doesn't the amplifier require power? And if so, would it be powered by the game port? I mean I know that the you don't intend to actually use it but I'm curious how you could implement it in a FIRST game.

[phrontist]

I wonder if what you are measuring is Galvanic Skin Response? It's a neat phenomena, which is most commonly utilised as part of polygraphs (so-called "lie detectors"). I considered doing this as a gimmicky sponsor wowing thing, but decided it would probably be against FIRST rules.

Off the top of my head it seems the easiest way to do this would be to build an op-amp like this one and then connect it's output voltage to an appropriate transistor...

I'd love to hear the actual implementation details!

[Kims Robot]

Its sort of like GSR, but that has more to do with the resistance and skin "persperation" in a sense.

I was going to try to describe EMG, but I think this site does it pretty well: http://vuiis.vanderbilt.edu/~nins/EMG_FAQ.htm

And photronist, you are right... per <R69> I would not be able to power this box unless I was able to get it from the joystick port. I dont think the box that I am using could do it, and Im not sure there is enough current in the output of the joystick port to support the amplifier Im using at the moment.

When I first came up with this idea, I thought of proposing a change to the FIRST rules, but I wanted to see how far I got. I dont think it would be feasible this year, as it would take quite a bit more time to do some advanced processing of the signals to make it usable in competition... So perhaps once I prove out the details, I'll make a pitch

[mechanicalbrain]

Originally Posted by Kims Robot

When I first came up with this idea, I thought of proposing a change to the FIRST rules, but I wanted to see how far I got. I dont think it would be feasible this year, as it would take quite a bit more time to do some advanced processing of the signals to make it usable in competition... So perhaps once I prove out the details, I'll make a pitch

Good luck! If you manage to do it give me a call, I would love to alter one or two of the rules! I like the idea though! Its definitely indicative of the creativity that FIRST embodies so kudos.

[phrontist]

Yeah, I find that "no external power" rule restrictive...