Hello Robot researchers in collaboration with Carnegie Mellon University develop a system that allows people with tetraplegia to control a robot using brain and muscle signals, without surgery, without implants, only with external sensors, the system works in a combined way, on the one hand, electromyography sensors capture electrical signals from the muscles, even those that can no longer move. On the other hand, an electroencephalogram device monitors brain activity directly from the scalp.

Artificial intelligence interprets this data as commands; in practice, the user thinks and the robot executes. During tests in home environments, people managed to ask robots to bring water, pick up objects. even perform everyday tasks, all using a robot called Stretch, designed specifically to handle the complexity and unpredictability of a real house.

The most important thing is that unlike other more advanced solutions that require surgery, this system is accessible, simple and much less invasive, that changes the landscape, it stops being an experimental technology and begins to approach real life, especially for those who have lost mobility, and what comes next is even bigger, if today it is already possible to control a robotic arm with thought, the next step is to expand it to a complete body, a humanoid, where a person could interact with it through a machine, climb stairs, pick up objects and execute tasks complete.

When that evolves, physical limitation may cease to be a definitive barrier, because for the first time the body would cease to be the only means to act in the world, here we see someone recovering autonomy thanks to technology and that makes it clear that this advance is not only creating better machines, it is beginning to redefine the human body itself.