Brainwave Technology Stops Drivers Falling Asleep At The Wheel

Leicester University researchers have developed a new brainwave reader that can help preventing accidents by stopping the drivers falling asleep at the wheel. Project leader Dr. Matias Ison says that his team has developed new signal processing algorithms to compensate for the electrical activity created by the eye muscles as they move. These electric signals can interfere with the brain signals captured through electroencephalograph (EEG) systems. The biggest advantage of the technology is that the subject does not have to keep their eyes open for the EEG to work.

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The brain signals and eye movement can be tracked simultaneously - which can be used to add an extra parameter to the eye-tracking systems. It's expected that the new technology will help in improvement of the brain-computer interfaces.

For example, while driving; the driver might be 'looking' at the road, but his/her mind would be engaged in totally different thoughts or about to fall asleep. This situation can be effectively tracked by the EEG system; not by a standard eye-tracker.

The research team is currently conducting experiments to see how effectively the system tracks the parameters when the subject moves his eyes quickly. A normal person moves eyes about 3-4 times a second and gathering all the required information in a limited period of time is very challenging. With the evolution of the technology the brain-computer interfaces can be improved significantly. This can in turn be used in games or helping paralysed people control a wheelchair more effectively.

Via: #-Link-Snipped-#

Replies

  • Abhishek Rawal
    Abhishek Rawal
    Awesome invention by Dr.Matias Ison & his team.
    Especially this part very intriguing -->
    Kaustubh Katdare
    While driving; the driver might be 'looking' at the road, but his/her mind would be engaged in totally different thoughts or about to fall asleep. This situation can be effectively tracked by the EEG system; not by a standard eye-tracker.
    and

    Kaustubh Katdare
    With the evolution of the technology the brain-computer interfaces can be improved significantly. This can in turn be used in games or helping paralysed people control a wheelchair more effectively.
    I wonder, how this gadget will be setup in the car-system ? Do we have to wear all that wire consisting equipment on the head while driving or it's just for testing purpose the inventor has used ?

    I gotta read more on this, interesting invention. 👍
  • Kaustubh Katdare
    Kaustubh Katdare
    What's so difficult? The driver wears the system when in the driver's seat and it's connected to the chair. The system will continuously keep check on Driver's parameters and take necessary actions when required. Version 2.0 of it will be totally 'wireless', connected to the cloud so that a central monitoring system will take care of all the drivers connected to it.

    But I think all our future cars will be self-driven.
  • lovebox
    lovebox
    Kaustubh Katdare
    But I think all our future cars will be self-driven.
    I agree to that. Looking at the current levels of development, we can assume that automobiles will become truly AUTO (Automatically driven, I mean) well within a decade. Then we can let the passengers fall asleep without much of a problem.
    Only one thing: for the system to be successful, all vehicles on the roads have to be in Auto-Drive mode. Otherwise, manually driven ones may cause some interference.
    Any ideas how this problem can be overcome guys?
  • Ashraf HZ
    Ashraf HZ
    Well, I hope in the future I can be dependent on automated, reliable, safe and punctual public transportation for the daily commute.
  • Kaustubh Katdare
    Kaustubh Katdare
    ash
    Well, I hope in the future I can be dependent on automated, reliable, safe and punctual public transportation for the daily commute.
    I think a lot of research is already being done on making the road travel safer. I think instead of putting humans under control of the vehicles; we'll be in a better position to avoid accidents by letting the computers handle them.

    However, if someone hacks into the control network of automobiles; they can cause a huge damage. I however think that we're slowly progressing towards completely automated transportation.
  • Jeffrey Arulraj
    Jeffrey Arulraj
    Automated transportation is all fiction without proper and efficient usage of power from the motor we are using in Cars

    Well this is cool gadget and I think I need this specially when we are taking a longer ride FOr shorter rides this can be cumbersome at all time
  • Ashraf HZ
    Ashraf HZ
    Kaustubh Katdare
    However, if someone hacks into the control network of automobiles; they can cause a huge damage. I however think that we're slowly progressing towards completely automated transportation.
    There will surely be fail-safe devices when designing these automobile networks. Like Delhi's Metro or Malaysia's LRT, if there was any signal issue, all trains on the network will stop regardless. The "control network" is definitely a different standard than what we have as the Internet.. more specialized and secure.

    #-Link-Snipped-#
    Perhaps dedicated lanes for the automatic driven cars, as well as speed limits for manually driven cars?

    I still think its better to move towards public transportation rather than everyone having a private autonomous car, at least for densely populated areas.

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Though the entity is commercial, the video is informative.