Remember those good sci-fi movies where the main characters used all sort of wacky gadgets in order to prevail in the battle against some villain? Well in the last decades, many of those wacky crossed that science fiction border and became everyday facts. China develops a mind-controlled vehicle as part of their endeavor to take over the autonomous vehicle market.
Mind-control and driverless cars; one would think that these things would not go well together. But is would seem that the two get along just fine and the results are simply amazing. The project is being conducted by a team of computer scientists from the Nankai University, who aim at developing a whole driverless car concept.
Basically, the vehicle uses the driver’s brain waves in order to perform several actions. Professor Zhang, the lead scientist of this project, had the courtesy of explaining the process step by step. It would seem that the car can’t actually read your mind.
The driver, upon entering the vehicle, must wear a specially designed helmet, which is used to assign actions to the car’s onboard computer. The helmet is outfitted with 16 sensors which are capable of picking up the brain’s EEG signals. Basically, the whole helmet is one big EEG machine. After the sensors pick up the corresponding brain signals, it basically transforms them in binary signs, which can be easily interpreted by the onboard computer.
Then, the computer takes over the information and transforms them into actions and motions. For instance, if you want the car to move forward, all you have to do is raise your head and the car will start moving forward. The same principle applies to the back motion. According to the research team, the driver could perform many more actions. For instance, the user can use the computer in order to lock or to unlock the car. And all actions would be performed without the driver ever touching the vehicle.
And, according to its makers, the car could actually hold the key to developing more reliable eco-friendly vehicles. Most of the projects feature cars which run solely on electrical energy.
It would seem that is the dream car we have been waiting for all along. It’s fast, it’s eco-friendly, but it packs a lot of power. Moreover, you are capable of controlling your vehicle with just a single thought. Simply by giving it some thought, the vehicle in able to perform some extraordinary feats.