At the 2018 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Nissan will demonstrate brain-to-vehicle technology that could transform your car into your co-pilot.
Nissan has harnessed the power of advanced medical software to improve a vehicle’s handling, responsiveness, and adaptability by reading the mind of its driver. The tech allows your car to listen to your brain activity, anticipating your desire to turn or brake before the signal reaches your limbs. Through testing, the company has discovered that it can do this between 0.2 and 0.5 seconds faster than you can perform the actions manually, without seeming intrusive.
The idea is that cars using this “B2V” technology will gain the ability to adapt to their owner’s driving style, as well as making the act of driving itself less stressful and more enjoyable. In the words of Nissan Vice-President Daniele Schillaci:
When most people think about autonomous driving, they have a very impersonal vision of the future, where humans relinquish control to the machines. Yet B2V technology does the opposite, by using signals from their own brain to make the drive even more exciting and enjoyable.
The theoretical vehicle could use that same perception to employ augmented reality, in order to provide a more relaxing driving experience with useful or otherwise complimentary visualizations. Senior Innovation Researcher Dr. Lucian Gheorghe of the Nissan Research Center called the tech’s potential “incredible,” believing that it represents “a catalyst for more Nissan innovation inside our vehicles in the years to come.”
You can find Nate Church being a huge nerd @Get2Church on Twitter.