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This Defense Intelligence Reference Document was produced by the Defense Intelligence Agency's Defense Warning Office under the Advanced Aerospace Weapon System Applications program and dated 23 March 2010. It surveys noninvasive and invasive brain-machine interface technologies, including EEG, MEG, fMRI, NIRS and implanted electrode arrays, that could control external devices without limb-operated interfaces. It concludes that noninvasive electrical monitoring is the most promising near-term approach. For the long term it favors invasive single-neuron cortical connections.
From the source:Release of 2026-09-18 Incident: 3/23/10, Las Vegas, Nevada. Released with redactions. This document is a Defense Intelligence Reference Document (DIRD), a technical reference format used by the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) to capture baseline knowledge on a specific topic for later analytic use. DIRDs are best understood as reference and synthesis products rather than as original research. It is one of 38 DIRDs produced under the Advanced Aerospace Weapon System Applications Program (AAWSAP) between 2009 and 2011. Because AAWSAP’s scope permitted a broad range of supporting topics, not every DIRD in the series directly concerns aerospace systems or future threat assessment. The following summary reflects the DIRD’s scope and framing at the time of writing and should not be read as implying current validation of the concepts discussed. This DIRD surveys brain-machine interface technologies intended to allow users to control external devices without conventional manual controls, and it evaluates both noninvasive and invasive approaches for turning neural or related physiological signals into usable commands. The report reviews the underlying neural signals, distinguishes between open- and closed-loop control systems, and examines technologies including scalp-based electrical recording, magnetic and imaging-based methods, and implanted cortical interfaces, with particular attention to bandwidth, response time, signal quality, and practical usability. It concludes that, in the near term, the most practical systems are likely to be noninvasive electrical approaches that draw heavily on muscle and neural signals, while longer-term high-bandwidth control would likely require more advanced invasive interfaces capable of robust two-way communication with individual neurons. The document presents thought-based control of external devices as a research field with plausible assistive and specialized applications, while emphasizing that naturalistic, high-performance control remained constrained by major technical and physiological limits.
UNCLASSIFIED/ /P91t 9FFl@IAL YSIE 8HLY Japan in real time. Using visual feedback to the monkey via live streaming video, the humanoid robot in Japan was shown to execute locomotion-like movements in a similar manner as the monkey . (Reference 43) An example of a closed loop peripheral system is the creation of the humanoid robot called CB-i (Computational Brain Interface) . This system is illustrated in Figure 4. In a recent experiment, CB-i successfully mimicked the physical actions being performed by a monkey that was positioned in a remote location (Reference 43). MEMS, ECOG, AND PSOC CIRCUITRY To address the issue of signal interface between the biological and physical systems, development has focused on hybrid devices that are created by fusing together biomolecules, cells, and other tissues, with innovative micro-size current sensors using Micro Electro Mechanical Systems (MEMS). These systems often employ the use of biomaterials and functional high polymer materials that enable the device to sense information about the human body and the environment with greater speed and sensitivity than conventional metallic sensors. These devices are built from materials and mechanisms that are compatible with the human body, and they are proving to be powerful tools for interfacing between the human body and machines. The emergence of MEMS biotechnology has motivated various strategies to detect electrical signals generated from a stimulated region within the brain into a captured electrical response that is translated to a machine interface. One advantage of these devices is that the fusing of biological to physical circuitry is performed external to the body and the interface connection of the implants is thus biological to biological. This avoids a natural reaction of the nervous system to form scar tissue around penetrating chronic physical probes. 18 Scar tissue leads to degradation of proximal signal transfer over time. These neural-tissue encapsulated chips offer significant advantages over other technologies because of their ability to be rapidly integrated into the biological environment. Noninvasive EEG platforms often utilize a cap that covers the skull and reads the electrical signals generated from the brain on the surface of the skin atop the head. However, a technical limitation in the bandwidth of EEG-based methods often provides low information rates. Currently EEG methods are limited to 20-30 bits/min ( < 0.5 bits/s). This drawback has prompted the use of a more accurate and speedy recording method based on invasive techniques such as the electrocorticogram (ECoG), where electrode arrays are placed on top of the cortex, but electrode penetration into brain tissue is minimal. ECoGs have become synonymous with the pre-surgical monitoring of epileptic seizure foci (Reference 45). Valuable insights can be gained by combining both invasive and noninvasive schemes. For example, combining functional MRI (fMRI) and intracortical recording has yielded important information about metabolic mechanisms that are most highly correlated with recorded neural activity. Microelectric neurochip developments seek to combine signal sensing and processing for bidirectional BMI systems. Studies in the feasibility of using adaptive input-output models for reconstructing hand trajectories have recently been published. These studies have focused on the 18 Chronic devices are intended for long-duration implant, in contrast with acute implanted devices, which are utilized f or a short duration and then removed . Formation of scar tissue is dependent on t he material used for the electrodes. UNCLASSIFIED/ /FOA OFFI&IAk YSIE 8HL'I 14
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Official release, from the pursue collection. The PDF is mirrored here; the original link is above. 36 pages are in the text index: search them above, or from the library's search.