Honda developing hat to read brain patterns and control car
Honda is working on developing a 'hat' for drivers to wear which could potentially transmit human thoughts into the car's computer and take control of certain settings, including the steering. Honda says it has already developed a similar hat that interprets electrical brain waves, but the design requires over 100 sensors to be embedded into the skull.
Honda now says it's working on a 'soft pad' version that reads the same waves and cerebral blood flow through the user's hair. Yasuhisa Arai, from the Honda Research Institute in Tokyo, recently said in a Japanese report that the technology could even replace the steering wheel in cars within ten years.
Even though it does seem a little sketchy at this stage, Honda says a toned-down version of the hat might be more viable. A less-advanced system could see drivers wearing a hat to control things such as windscreen wipers, satellite navigation and the opening of doors, boot and bonnet, all through a single thought alone, Honda says.
The company says it has already made sensors small enough to fit inside the lining of a regular hat, Honda is just focusing on making the hat 'cool' and a fashionable item motorists would actually like to wear.
We wonder though, what happens if you accidentally 'think' the wrong thing while on a motorway?