Japanese develop brain-powered wheelchair

Japanese scientists have devised a wheelchair powered by thought alone.

And the reaction time of an eighth of a second is almost as fast as humans can think.

The discovery has the potential to set a whole generation of handicapped or elderly people into motion, says Toyota, which funded the research into brain-wave technology.

The system, which uses a cap fitted with electrodes to read and analyse brain waves, is among the fastest of its kind in the world and takes just 125 milliseconds to respond.

Earlier systems take several seconds.

It means wheelchair drivers will merely have to think about moving forward, left or right before they're on their way.

"Brain-wave analysis results are displayed on a panel so quickly that drivers do not sense any delay," Toyota said in a statement.

"The system has the capacity to adjust itself to the characteristics of each individual driver, thereby improving the efficiency with which it senses a driver's commands."

But don't get too excited just yet - there's no word on when a brain-powered wheelchair might hit the market.

The new system links two old technologies - Blind Signal Separation (BSS) and space-time-frequency filtering (STF) - which work together to make brain-wave analysis much faster.

The next step is increasing the range of commands the technology can understand, or getting them to comprehend emotions.

Scientists believe it could one day be used in a wide range of applications, particularly in medicine or nursing care.

- AAP