CHINA ON THE WAY TO MIND CONTROLLED CAR

31-12-2015

The race for the autonomous car is nothing new, massive tech giants have taken part in being able to create the first car tho get from point A to point B on its own.

Scientists in China are however coming up with a new way to drive car, through mind reading headgears.

China's Great Wall Motors has been working in partnership with the Nankai University researchers to get the first test vehicle in operation.

16 sensors will be attached into a cap that will harvest electroencephalogram (EEG) signals from the mind of the driver and translate this into commands for the car.

Researchers behind the project say development has taken just two years, and it was originally intended to help disabled drivers get around by themselves.

"Driverless cars' further development can bring more benefits to us, since we can better realise functions relating to brain controlling with the help of the driverless cars' platform," lead researcher, Duan Feng from Nankai University, told Reuters.

"In the end, cars, whether driverless or not, and machines are serving for people," he said.

"Under such circumstances, people's intentions must be recognised. In our project, it makes the cars better serve human beings."

At this time it is not clear when this will be available for commercial use, but it does give engineers a new avenue to explore a different outlet from the traditional steering wheel and pedal.

The team has said that the thoughts would need to be provided sporadically, such as when changing lanes or speeding up, and the driver won’t need to think about controlling the car.

At the moment there is no mechanism of turning the car in any direction, though it will be possible to lock and unlock the car using the thoughts.

"There are two starting points of this project," said one of the team, Zhang Zhao.

"The first one is to provide a driving method without using hands or feet for the disabled who are unable to move freely; and secondly, to provide healthy people with a new and more intellectualised driving mode."

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