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Tuesday, March 3, 2015

Paraplegic Flies F-35 Simulator Using Thought Controlled Robotic Arms

A paralyzed 55-year old woman was able to fly the advanced F-35 fighter jet and a single-engined Cessna plane via thought controlled robotic arms. According to the Washington Post 55-year-old Jan Scheuermann, who was suffering from a neurodegenerative condition for the past 11 years, was fitted with two probes on her brain which allowed her to control her left and right prosthetic arms.

Previously, Jan Scheuermann used the same procedure to accomplish simple tasks such as eating & drinking which you can see in the video below.

Footage from CBS News Youtube Channel

For the past two years, Scheuermann was an active participant of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Revolutionizing Prosthetics program, a project undertaken with the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.

DARPA researchers are hopeful that the results of their experiments would allow them to push the boundaries on what the brain can do especially in the area of prosthetics and other medical applications. There may be defense applications as well but none are on horizon at the moment.

Scheuermann's accomplishments are part of the growing potential from thought-control applications. Last year, doctors in Ohio were able to get paraplegic patient to move his artificial hands using only his thoughts. The technique involved placing a chip in the patient's brain. 

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