US wants soldiers to control drones, machines with their minds

The US Defense Agency aims to use advanced technology in order to create a brain-machine interface so soldiers can control machines directly using their brains.

The US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has officially funded a program to come up with such a kind of headset designed to let military personnel control anything from ‘active cyber defense systems’ to ‘swarms of unmanned aerial vehicles’ through brain activity alone.

As per Futurism, DARPA hopes that such an interface could make it easier for service members to carry out difficult tasks and help them multitask too. For the creation of the headset, the agency has to first figure out a way to record electrical signals in the brain and how to relay information back to the brain tissue.

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As they are done with this, DARPA is aiming to turn that ability into a brain-machine interface that is useful in a military context, such as controlling drone swarms. The agency wants to get such a headset made in four years, as per IEEE Spectrum.

“Just as service members put on protective and tactical gear in preparation for a mission, in the future they might put on a headset containing a neural interface, use the technology however it’s needed, then put the tool aside when the mission is complete,” said program manager Al Emondi.