Brain implant lets man with paralysis fly a virtual drone by thought
A man with paralysis was able to fly a virtual drone through a complex obstacle course simply by thinking about moving his fingers, with signals being interpreted by an AI model
By Matthew Sparkes
20 January 2025
A virtual drone was piloted through an obstacle course by a person imagining moving their fingers
Willsey et al.
A man with paralysis who had electrodes implanted in his brain can pilot a virtual drone through an obstacle course simply by imagining moving his fingers. His brain signals are interpreted by an AI model and then used to control a simulated drone.
Brain-computer interface (BCI) research has made huge strides in recent years, allowing people with paralysis to precisely control a mouse cursor and dictate speech to computers by imagining writing words with a pen. But so far, they haven’t yet shown great promise in complex applications with multiple inputs.
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Now, Matthew Willsey at the University of Michigan and his colleagues have created an algorithm that allows a user to trigger four discrete signals by imagining moving their fingers and thumb.
The anonymous man who tried the technology has tetraplegia due to a spinal cord injury. He had already been fitted with a BCI from Blackrock Neurotech made up of 192 electrodes, implanted in the area of the brain that controls hand motion.
An AI model was used to map the complex neural signals received by the electrodes to the user’s thoughts. The participant learned how to think of the first two fingers of one hand moving, creating an electrical signal that can be made stronger or weaker. Another signal was generated by the second two fingers and another two by the thumb.
