A team of Swiss scientists has shown how a semi-paralysed person can control a robot with brain signals.
Researchers from the Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne say their experiment has brought them a step closer to helping immobile patients to interact with their surroundings using a robot “avatar”.
In a demonstration on Tuesday, a partially tetraplegic patient at a hospital in Sion imagined lifting his fingers to move a robot at the university, which is 100 kilometres away.
Similar experiments have taken place in the United States and Germany, but they involved able-bodied patients or brain implants.
In comparison, the Swiss team only used a simple head cap to record the brain signals.
swissinfo.ch and agencies