German researchers invent car steered by human thinking

Berlin - Scientists at the Free University of Berlin in Germany have made progress on designing a car that will be steered by the driver's thoughts.

World Science reported last month that scientists at the Autonomous Laboratory of Berlin’s Free University have made progress on distinguishing brain wave patterns in people when they think of concepts relating movement, e.g. left versus right or speeding up versus stopping. Using sensors, they created the brain-computer interface for allowing the driver to convey the directional/movement related thinking to the computer which controls the car. Equipped with video cameras, radars, and laser sensors, the automatic car has a three-dimensional view of its surroundings and by the special software that can be ‘trained’ to distinguish between various movement-related brain wave patterns of its driver, it drives automatically as the person connecting through the sensors thinks about the direction and speed of its movement. While the technology has to be improved to make it available for public use, the progress made so far has been promising. The thought-driven car has been tested at the site of an airport in Berlin and the driver’s control of the car by his thinking was almost free of any problem. The following video released by the Autonomous Laboratory demonstrates the mechanism by which the thought-driven cars would operate.