Georgia Tech engineers have developed a robotic limb that acts as a third hand to greatly increase the creative ability of a drummer.
In the video at the end of this article you can see the robotic hand that can play at the same time but also by making drum combinations according to the drummer that's right.
"We believe that if we increase human skills with technology then we will be able to do much more," says director of the Music Technology Center Gil Weinberg. "We think music is a big field to experiment with"
The robotic "smart arm' is placed on the musician's shoulder and is able to respond both to his movements and to the music he plays. A related article from Georgia Tech explains that the robot has learned how the human body moves, and with its motion-based sensors it understands what the drummer plans to do next. If the robot senses the drummer moving towards the cymbal, it moves there. If the drummer moves towards the drum, the robot focuses on it.
Η team he's currently experimenting with electroencephalogram (EEG) technology so that in the future robots could potentially read a drummer's brain waves to sense what he's thinking about changing tempo or which drum to hit.
The project, funded by the National Science Foundation, is an impressive demonstration of coordination. The robot must interpret the human action and translate it to a specific location on the drum, using accelerometers to measure the distance in various objects. If the human drummer's tempo slows down or speeds up, so does the robot.
The robot, of course, is quite far to the skill level of a John Bonham (drummer of the British rock band Led Zeppelin) but has so far proved to be good enough for a first step in the workshop.
