'Brake pedal' by thought

Accident prevention will increase if drivers stop thinking with their vehicles instead of using their feet, German scientists say.

Some vehicles are equipped with systems capable of detecting traffic hazards. As a result, they can stop running as soon as the driver touches the brakes. But Stefan Haufe, a researcher at the Berlin-based Institute for Technology in Germany, says that the connection between the brakes and the brain is a way to help people stop the car in time, the Newscientist reported.

Volunteers take part in a test drive
think of the Berlin Institute of Technology. Photo: Newscientist.

Haufe and his colleagues placed a device capable of measuring electrical signals in the brain to the heads of 18 volunteers. This is often used by scientists to measure the activity of the brain without causing side effects. Then the team asked the volunteer team to operate a virtual car and launch at 100 km / h. Another car runs in front of a volunteer car at variable speed.

The system records three types of brain waves when the driver is forced to brake. Thanks to that the team of experts can predict the driver's intention to use the brakes. Sensors on the driver's leg monitor the muscle tension - an indicator of the driver's intention to brake. When one of the three types of brain waves appears and the tension of the leg muscles increases, a device sends a stop signal to the brakes.

The results show that the stop system with the idea of helping the car earlier than 130 parts per million compared with foot brake pedal operation. It does not matter if the car is slow. At a speed of 100 km / h, if the car stops earlier than 130 ppm, the distance between it and the obstacle increases by one segment to the size of a small car. That extra gap is big enough to prevent accidents.

Palaniappan Ramaswamy, a specialist at the University of Essex in the UK, said that the Berlin Institute of Technology experiment was conducted in simulated environments, with people who were always ready to stop. Thus, the idea of stopping the car may not work in situations where the driver's mind is distracted. Haufe's team will perform other tests to verify Ramaswamy's judgment.