A new helmet that monitors your brain while you drive aims to prevent accidents caused by fatigue or lapses in concentration.
The dystopian invention is from Japanese company Macnica – and DailyMail.com trialed it at the CES tech conference in Las Vegas this week.
The helmet uses a series of electrodes and sensors that monitor activity in the important regions of your brain.
‘By measuring your brain activity, we can measure millisecond-by-millisecond your state, from simple measures like how drowsy you are to more sophisticated concentration,’ Leon Deouell, chief science officer of Inner Eye, told DailyMail.com.
Before the driving simulation began, Macnica staff calibrated the EEG device to get a proper reading of my brainwaves
By tapping into your brainwaves and analyzing them with AI, Macnica generates a readout that shows how well you’re concentrating, whether you’re distracted, and how drowsy you are.
At the moment, it is purely for research purposes, not for customers to use in their cars.
One of the main goals for this technology is to help engineers designing the vehicles of the future.
Using data on driver attention, they will be able to see the results of their design and engineering efforts in black and white, tweaking systems to keep drivers engaged behind the wheel.
If it notices you are distracted or drowsy, it would activate onboard notifications to warn you to tune back in or take a break.
They will also be able to make autonomous vehicles safer and more pleasant to drive, Deouell said.
Of course, you might be concentrating on your conversation with the passenger next to you, rather than on the road.
So they separate these two types of attention, focusing on one called ‘attention on task.
Deouell’s company Inner Eye developed the brainwave reading software, and it partnered with Macnica to apply the tech to cars.
If you’re paying attention and alert, Deouell said, an autonomous vehicle could take note of your brain state and drive a little faster. But if you’re not, it can cut the power a bit to make the ride safer.
‘The car will be interactive with your brain,’ he said.
I took a hot lap in a driving simulator while the Macnica EEG headset read my brainwaves. Needless to say, it showed that I was concentrating
I stopped by the company’s display at CES in Las Vegas, where Macnica employees strapped an electroencephalography (EEG) headset onto my scalp to see how well I could pay attention behind the wheel of a driving simulator.
First they calibrated the device by having me hold my eyes open and then closed, each for a minute at a time.
Then they plopped me into the driver’s seat and had me pilot a virtual Mazda Miata around a race track.
I did okay. I went off track and hit a wall once or twice, but once I figured out the paddle shifters, I was flying.
All the while, the EEG headset was reading my brainwaves.
Next came an unexpected task: dealing with someone else’s road rage.
Driving a simulated Toyota Prius, I slowly merged onto the highway.
A big black SUV soon filled my rear view mirror, flashing its lights to signal the driver wanted to pass.
I laughed nervously, and at this point, I was very focused on avoiding an accident.
No matter what I did, though, it would not just pass and leave me alone.
These graphs charted my brain activity during calibration (first two sections), and during a defensive driving task (third section). When my eyes were closed during the calibration, the computer detected high levels of drowsiness (bottom chart), but when I was trying to keep from getting rammed off the road, my concentration was high (top chart)
Soon enough, the truck hit my little hybrid and spun me around, the simulator seat jolting in response.
Yusuke Tsukakoshi from Macnica showed me my results on a computer screen.
The readout told the tale of my brain state during the driving tasks: high levels of concentration, which went even higher when the SUV began forcing me off the road.
As entertaining as the simulation was, Macnica intends their product to be used by professional engineers when they are designing cars.
Multiple major car companies are already partnering with Macnica, global innovation sourcing director Masashi Nagamori told DailyMail.com.
Nissan and Toyota are involved, and while you may not get a chance to test out Macnica’s EEG cap in a car, you may one day drive a car that was developed using it.
