Tech & Biz

This is your grid on brains [Real-Life Prototype for The Matrix]

by Erik Larson | October 4, 2008 at 01:19 pm

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Human jobs are being eliminated by computers and robots, who work without complaints or demands, in exchange for electricity and maintenance. In the future, if the rat-brain research described in this article pays off, perhaps we will be able to rent brain-hours to our local utilities to help manage the power grid. I hope they have a telecommuting option, so I can just plug in the electrodes from my home computer. Even better will be if technology finds a way to use my brain power without my being consciously involved, so i can surf the internet while working.

(PhysOrg.com) -- Managing power networks in the future may involve a little more brain power than it does today, if researchers at Missouri University of Science and Technology succeed in a new project that involves literally tapping brain cells grown on networks of electrodes.
The Missouri S&T group, working with researchers at Georgia Institute of Technology, plans to use the brain power to develop a new method for tracking and managing the constantly changing levels of power supply and demand.

Led by Dr. Ganesh Kumar Venayagamoorthy, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering, the researchers will use living neural networks composed of thousands of brain cells from laboratory rats to control simulated power grids in the lab. From those studies, the researchers hope to create a "biologically inspired" computer program to manage and control complex power grids in Mexico, Brazil, Nigeria and elsewhere.

"We want to develop a totally new architecture than what exists today," says Venayagamoorthy, who also directs the Real-Time Power and Intelligent Systems Laboratory at Missouri S&T. "Power systems control is very complex, and the brain is a very flexible, very adaptable network. The brain is really good at handling uncertainties."