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Science

Creepy: This Robot Can Now Control You With Electricity

Nov. 16, 2011 9:57am Liz Klimas

Being under the control of robots sounds like a sci-fi horror movie plot, but researchers have developed a robot that can do just that.

Researchers Create Robot That Controls Human Arm With Electrodes

This humanoid robot uses electrical current to move and control the test subject's arm. (Photo: Bruno Adorno/LIRMM)

The Montpellier Laboratory of Informatics, Robotics and Microelectronics research team created a robot that can control a human limb with electrical pulses, according to IEEE Spectrum. Right now, the technology is only advanced enough to make a human holding a ball move their arm and then release the ball through a hoop, but they’re confident more advanced tasks are in its future.

Watch the robot control a subject’s arm:

Popular Science lays out the following timeline, voicing suspicions many could have over such a robot:

November 15, 2011: Is when it began.
March 11, 2014: The “robot made me do it” defense holds up in a court of law for the first time.
October 19, 2021: Robots of Canada send an army of slave humans against the United States.

But IEEE Spectrum reports that the robot’s creators have honorable intentions for its use:

Their goal is to develop robotic technologies that can help people suffering from paralysis and other disabilities to regain some of their motor skills.

To be sure, an advanced, dexterous robot arm would be capable of assisting paralyzed people with daily tasks. And other technologies such as robot teleoperation, brain-machine interfaces, and powered exoskeletons also promise to give physically disabled people more mobility.

But Adorno and his colleagues say there are advantages in having a robot controlling a person’s body. The technique they’re using to do that, known asfunctional electrical stimulation (FES), is used in rehabilitation and has physical and psychological benefits to patients.

“Imagine a robot that brings a glass of water to a person with limited movements,” says Bruno Vilhena Adorno, the study’s lead researcher. “From a medical point of view, you might want to encourage the person to move more, and that’s when the robot can help, by moving the person’s arm to reach and hold the glass.”

Another advantage, he adds, is that capable robotic arms are still big, heavy, and expensive. By relying on a person’s physical abilities, robotic arms designed to assist people can have their complexity and cost reduced. Many research teams are teaching robots how to perform bimanual manipulations, and Adorno says it seemed like a natural step to bring human arms into the mix.

To make the subject’s arm move precisely as the robot would want, the team placed four electrodes in specific places according to the parts of the arm it would contract and force to move. All the human has to do once fitted with electrodes was grab the ball and then the Fujitsu HOAP-3 humanoid robot is able to manipulate them.

Electrode placement on test subject's arm. (Image: Bruno Adorno/LIRMM)

Now for what most people are wondering: what did the robot control feel like? IEEE spectrum reports Adorno as saying the current applied to the skin was safe and that “You get used to it.”

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Comments (23)

Brents Torts
Posted on November 20, 2011 at 10:45am
This is some promising tech and should help a lot of people in the near future.

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wntsmallgov
Posted on November 16, 2011 at 11:31pm
rise to the mechines—— I think Arnold should get some type of kick back for this.

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grayling646
Posted on November 16, 2011 at 6:17pm
Why does this make me think of the Stepford wives?

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- wbalzley
  Posted on November 16, 2011 at 6:31pm
  I am thinking more along the lines of the sci-fi film “The Puppet Masters”, or the TV Series “Stargate SG1.” This could be the perfect tool for enslavement.
  
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- 4blackhorses
  Posted on November 16, 2011 at 6:37pm
  While I hadn’t quite advanced to Stepford Wives, the thought of blow dolls did enter my mind….
  
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tiki886
Posted on November 16, 2011 at 4:48pm
An electrified cattle prod, properly applied can make you perform more dynamically than any robot.

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- wbalzley
  Posted on November 16, 2011 at 6:26pm
  Actually this technology is BETTER. Because the computer is in control, it can actually make you work harder and faster than you ordinarily could. The computer does not care if you are tired or if you ache; it simply carries out its instructions quickly and precisely. It can extract the absolute MAXIMUM amount of work from your body
  
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Glytch
Posted on November 16, 2011 at 3:52pm
The end is nigh. Europe launched it’s new prototype satellite titled Skynet (not joking), and now this.

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- wbalzley
  Posted on November 16, 2011 at 4:26pm
  They actually named it SKYNET? That is a PR gaffe if I ever heard one.
  
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amerbur
Posted on November 16, 2011 at 3:11pm
Could it make me exercise?

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- 4truth2all
  Posted on November 16, 2011 at 4:31pm
  Yes.. and it will wake you at 4 in the morning to do it. Even worse… it doesn’t do snooze…zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzap !
  
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- wbalzley
  Posted on November 16, 2011 at 6:29pm
  It could make you exercise harder than you have ever exercised in your life.
  
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wbalzley
Posted on November 16, 2011 at 2:26pm
This same technology could be used to make factory workers more efficient. Workers could watch movies or listen to music while a computer controls their body to perform the repetitive and boring tasks. Computer controls and human machines, think of the POSSIBILITIES…

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oldschoolgreen
Posted on November 16, 2011 at 1:42pm
Freaky but useful. Not sure skynet is online just yet.

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HumbleCitizen
Posted on November 16, 2011 at 12:37pm
The mark of the beast in either the hand or the forehead for which there is no way to return to God after it is installed.

It won’t be long now.

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- mikem1969
  Posted on November 16, 2011 at 12:53pm
  You said it, and when the government forces implants that allow us to be controlled by robots or electronic devices, Hell on earth will begin.
  
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- wbalzley
  Posted on November 16, 2011 at 2:36pm
  SCRIPTURAL INTERPRETATION:
  
  It is not the physical mark that damns the soul, but the spirit in which the mark is taken. When the time comes, the nations of the earth will be warned by an angelic messenger of the nature of the mark and its meaning. Prior to receiving the mark, people will be forced to renounce Christ and accept the Anti-Christ as their GOD.
  
  At first those who receive the mark will do so voluntarily, but as time passes those who do not will be excluded from more and more social activity until they cannot buy or sell anything. Eventually, those who refuse the mark will face the penalty of death (by beheading).
  
  Report this comment
- dnewton
  Posted on November 16, 2011 at 3:53pm
  If you were paralyzed, could it make you walk? This could mitigate stroke maybe. How long would it be until it is abused? Could I get Grandma to change her will? Could I get Obama to take fewer vacations? Maybe there could be some form of a chastity belt fabricated so that the world would not have too many people.
  
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- shirelover
  Posted on November 16, 2011 at 6:43pm
  Dnewton – OMG you just made me think of putting that stimulator pad on certain “generative” organs… yeah… genetic lifeguard,”You! outta the pool”
  
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@leftfighter
Posted on November 16, 2011 at 12:29pm
Outstanding!

Now I don’t have just governments trying to turn me into a puppet of the State, freaking robots are trying to make me their puppet too!

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- Snowleopard {gallery of cat folks}
  Posted on November 16, 2011 at 12:55pm
  Right now there is only one thing I am thinking of this development…”Got nukes?”
  
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lukerw
Posted on November 16, 2011 at 12:23pm
Now… just turn that into a “Killer Kane” Helmet… and Buck Rogers will become a Prophet!

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Baddoggy
Posted on November 16, 2011 at 12:16pm
If you catch your 12 year old in the bathroom, he can now say…”The robot made me do it”…

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