Spanish engineer José del R. Millán has recently been elected by Scientific American as one of the research leaders in 2004 for his experiences that allowed a small robot to move around a model house, while the bot itself handled time-sensitive maneuvers such as avoiding obstacles.
Each user chooses three mental states that produce distinguishable brain-wave patterns and trains the system in a few hour-long sessions. These states are then used as “forward,” “left” and “right” commands.
Millán is currently leading the MAIA project to come up with a mind-controlled wheelchair, and a mind-controlled robotic arm that could be be used for future prosthesis. Don’t hold your breath: the scientist doesn’t expect the mond-controlled wheelchair to be ready before 2015.