“Look Ma, no hands!”
I yelled that at my mother countless times when I learned to ride a bike. At first she freaked out when I let go of the handles and then eventually her anxiety turned into annoyance. Now I wonder how she’d feel if I did that with the new AutoNOMOS project, BrainDriver.
The car is attached with drive-by-wires and controlled by an EEG sensor. This “cap” of 16 sensors measure the electromagnetic signals produced by the brain.
Basically, you wear the sensor cap and you calibrate your brain with the computer, which learns to associate two different brain patterns with left or right directions. You test the computer by moving a cube on the screen in either direction by just your thoughts.
The same goes with operating the car, you wear the sensor cap and get into a specially-designed car equipped with video cameras, radars and laser sensors so the car can get a full three-dimensional view of its surroundings. In a semi-autonomous drive, the car automatically drives itself to the corner and then at the intersection the “driver” orders the car which direction to turn.
While AutoNOMOS claims that BrainDriver is still a demonstration and is not roadworthy yet, they also say that human-machine interfaces like this could play a big role in the future of autonomous driving.
Don’t worry Ma, it probably won’t be for a long time.
Source: AutoNOMOS Labs