UTSA researchers study using brain signals to operate drones

Danel Pack, left, Chair of Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at UTSA, points out the inner workings of a drone held by student Yonggun Lee. A grant from the Department of Defense will enable UTSA's drone researchers to acquire two state-of-the-art systems to analyze brain waves and applying that knowledge to control drones with brain waves. Wednesday, August. 27, 2014. less Danel Pack, left, Chair of Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at UTSA, points out the inner workings of a drone held by student Yonggun Lee. A grant from the Department of Defense will enable UTSA's ... more Photo: San Antonio Express-News Photo: San Antonio Express-News Image 1 of / 77 Caption Close UTSA researchers study using brain signals to operate drones 1 / 77 Back to Gallery

SAN ANTONIO — With sensors covering his head, University of Texas at San Antonio graduate student Mauricio Merino concentrates hard as a camo-colored drone hovers with a soft hum in the middle of a campus research lab.

For now, fellow graduate student Prasanna Kolar stands nearby to operate the unmanned aerial vehicle, also called a UAV or drone, through a cell phone app — gently commanding it left and right.

But the goal is to create a process for a human to control the movements of groups of drones with only a thought, said Daniel Pack, chairman of UTSA's electrical and computer engineering department.

The newly launched research comes at the intersection of two batches of funding. A team of researchers from the Unmanned Systems Laboratory in the electrical and computer engineering department recently scored a $300,000 contract from the Office of the Secretary of Defense to investigate how soldiers could use their brain signals to operate drones for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance missions.

A separate $400,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Defense allowed the school to buy two high performance electroencephalogram systems, or EEG systems, which measure brain waves.

Six professors in various departments, including the drone researchers, will use the new EEG systems for different projects studying brain-machine interaction.

Pack said his research may help the Army lighten the load for soldiers in the field — who may already be carrying weapons, water, etc.

“It becomes more burdensome to ask them to carry more things,” Pack said. “You have to have a computer or a mechanism that you use to control the UAVs. But if you can do this without having them actually carry additional equipment ... then you are helping our soldiers.”

Pack envisions soldiers with EEG sensors inside helmets, giving commands more complicated than “move left” or “move right.”

He wants a soldier in the field to be able to, for instance, scout for enemies by commanding a group of drones to “go over the hill and see what's up there.” Then the soldier might receive data from the drones.

People may have different brain waves for the same command, so researchers will have to “minimize the differences and maximize the similarities” between brain waves and come up with ways to interpret those waves into machine commands, Pack said.

UTSA electrical and computer engineering professor Yufei Huang said the sensors covering Merino's head measure magnetic waves generated by brain activity. When measured, the energy fields from the brain waves take on different shapes, which are unique to a person's brain status in many cases, Huang said. By analyzing the shape of the signal generated by the brain, researchers should be able to associate it with a particular brain activity, he said.

“For people who don't have motor skills, for people in wheelchairs, this could be so helpful,” said Kolar, imagining a person able to move a wheelchair with thoughts.

More Information



Blasting pig eyes could lead to better eyewear for GIs

jlloyd@express-news.net