Now, robot that follows your eyes to create art

LONDON: Researchers have built a robot artist that can paint a picture by simply tracking your eye movements.

Developed by Aldo Faisal of Imperial College London and his team the robotic arm can be controlled with a person's eyes.

An off-the-shelf eye-tracker follows a person's gaze, sending instructions to the industrial robot arm depending on how and where the person looks.

The commands are able to move the arm instantly using, for example, fixed gazes and sequences of prolonged blinks.

A person can get the robot arm to paint a horizontal line by staring at a start point and then an end point, 'New Scientist' reported.

Faisal plans to swap the current brush grip with a robotic hand to allow it to manipulate objects, allowing the system to be adapted for paralysed people or amputees.

Gaze commands could also be sent over the internet to control the arm remotely, allowing immobile patients to perform tasks from their beds.

Operators might use the system to control machinery at dangerous sites without being there - for example, to clean up chemical spills.