Thursday, August 4, 2011
I think therefore I brake
When taking your theory and practical driving tests, you’ll probably have learnt that allowing yourself enough braking response time is quite important in order not to be involved in an accident.
Well, a scientist at the Berlin Institute for Technology called, Stefan Haufe, has been developing technology which could cut out the time taken between your brain thinking, “I need to brake”, and your leg actually doing it. He and his colleagues used 18 participants in their research, attaching electroencephalography (EEG) wires to each person’s head and sitting them in a driving simulator.
The people were told to keep driving at 100 kilometers an hour (62mph) while staying close to the computer controlled vehicle driving ahead of them. The car in front would brake without warning several times during the simulation, and the participants’ brain waves were measured as they reacted.
On average the EEG system successfully ‘predicted’ the person’s intention to brake 130 milliseconds before they physically did so.
Now Mr Haufe has stated that he and his fellow researchers are “considering to test the system online in a real car, however, if such a technology would ever enter a commercial product, it would certainly be used to complement other assistive technology to avoid the consequences of false alarms that could be both annoying and dangerous".
This sounds like a positive advance into reducing road traffic accidents, yet, if the automated vehicles Google has been testing become a reality first, then EEG braking will be obsolete before it ever became commercially available.
Let the technology race commence!
Photo © delta_avi_delta via Flickr, under Creative Commons Licence
Labels: brain, brake, driverless technology, driving test, EEG, practical, scientist, theory
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posted by Fuse @ 5:16 AM 
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