BrainDriver - If You Can Think It, You Can Drive It
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If you were impressed by Google Inc.'s autonomous computer-controlled cars, you will be stunned by the BrainDriver - A car that can be controlled with your mind!
The genius behind this smart car is a team of computer scientists led by Paul Rojas who heads the Artificial Intelligence Group at Germany's Freie Universitat Berlin. To build the prototype, that they dubbed MadeInGermany, the group started by using commercially available devices to detect and record the electroencephalograms (EEG) or the brain's electrical activity associated with four basic car control commands - left, right, accelerate and brake.
They then programmed a computer controlled autonomous car with the patterns so that it would recognize them and know how to react. Next, they purchased an 'Emotive neuroheadset' developed for video games by San Francisco based Emotive that is designed to 'read' the player's thoughts and connected it to the autonomous car that had been programmed to react to the driver's thoughts.
However, while the car was ready, the driver was not. He still had to be trained so that he could think of the right commands at the appropriate times. Then, it was time to test the mind-controlled vehicle!
While the drive along the straight stretch of road was controlled by the car's computer when it came to turns, stopping or speeding up, the computer read the driver's commands conveyed via the Emotive neuroheadset fitted on his head. The experiment, as you can see from the video below, was quite successful. With just a slight delay in reaction, the car seemed to do exactly what its driver was thinking it to do.
This kind of futuristic car is of course nowhere close to coming to a car dealer near you, but the scientists believe that these thought driven commands have a lot of advantages even within today's normal cars, especially when it comes to preventing accidents.
That's because tests have shown that the human brain thinks about stopping long before the body reacts - meaning, that if we can develop cars that can stop based on our thoughts, the roads could become a lot safer - Pretty awesome!
Resources: news.discovery.com, autonomos.inf.fu-berlin.de
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260 Comments
- crystalmabout 12 yearsIn BrianDriver it is about a car that can read your mind and it could tell what it is cause is that it could read your mind and the effect is that that they put a cumputer so it could controll it dself and not go crazy
- Alexi Uabout 12 yearsThe article Brain Driver,is about a car that was made in Germany that you do not have to drive with your hands you can drive it with your mind.When you think accelerate,brake,left,or right it actually does it.The Germans are testing that if you get your mind of it it would still do it.
amariabout 12 yearsCool information but does this really help beginning teens start to drive?!- Jaimeabout 12 yearsThe article Brain Driver is talking about a car that you can drive by thinking.The car has this head piece that when you thin left,right,or brake it will do it.The article explains about how you can drive this car by using your brain.The article also has its own video that shows that they accomplished.
- Crystal Mabout 12 yearsIn the article"Brain Driver',the scientist were trying describe how the brain car works.The Brain Car works by you thinking about if it needs to go left,right,stop,and turn,but it needed a lot of tests before the test drive but then the scientist thought that it well be okay if you think the actions to control of the car at the time that you needed.
- Victoriaabout 12 yearsThe article,brain drive is about a scientist from Germany who wanted to see if a car can be controlled by your brain. The scientist had to do many agustments before the test drive ,but it did work out. He realized that you had to think of the right actions at the right time.
tomboy4eveover 12 yearsOMG now i ont need a lisens YES!- ghost faceover 12 yearsthis was so cool when it comes out i'm going to tell my perants to buy it
- Tom pover 12 yearscool you CAN DRIVE a car whith your brain.
- unknownover 12 yearsThis car is out of this world