The Future of Driving: Cars That'll Read Your Pulse (And Mind) to Keep You Safe
Every new car that hits the road today seems to have more in common with the smartphone in your pocket than with that rusted Chrysler LeBaron sitting in your father’s driveway.
They connect to the Internet. They run apps. They let you make phone calls, if that’s your thing. And soon they’ll be able to measure your heart rate, perspiration, and even your breath.
That’s right; automakers are working on ways to integrate biometric sensors —including heart rate monitors and brainwave sensors — into their vehicles. But this technology isn’t just about your car monitoring your blood pressure while you sit in traffic, though it’ll totally be able to do that. It’s about keeping you safe behind the wheel, and it could save your life one day.
Monitoring your heart
Hyundai, for example, is developing a car system that will analyze your heart rate and automatically call 911 and pull the vehicle over if it senses that you’re in some kind of medical distress.
Hyundai demonstrated the potential of its biometric technology in a concept video the automaker showed off at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in January. The video showed a driver’s pulse skyrocket before he began to lose consciousness. As his pulse rose, the driver’s smartwatch captured the data and sent it to the car.
The vehicle recognized the emergency, scanned the roadway behind it to make sure it was safe to change lanes, and pulled itself over to the shoulder.
The whole thing looks incredibly impressive, but then again, the footage came from a computer-generated demo video, so it’s more movie trailer than real-world demonstration.
Smartwatches and fitness bands are preferable to building monitors into the car itself, because drivers can easily upgrade them as technology evolves, and they’re portable from vehicle to vehicle.
The technology, which is still in its early conceptual stages, would likely take advantage of a smartwatch or a fitness band with a heart rate monitor to measure your pulse.
Hyundai’s Cason Grover says the company could also use in-car cameras that monitor the driver’s position in their seat. If the driver starts slumping, the car could intervene.
Stopping distracted driving
Ford’s Gary Stremolo — who carries the rather impressive title of global manager for driver experience, wearables, and health innovations — said his company is looking into using heart rate monitors too, along with gadgets that will measure perspiration as a way to monitor driver stress levels.
“If you think about how a lie detector machine works, it measures heart rate, respiration, galvanic skin response, those types of measures,” Stremolo said. “In a similar fashion, we would like to know if the driver is stressed at the moment.”
Meanwhile, a vehicle’s radar and other sensors could determine whether a driver is dealing with heavy stop-and-go traffic. It could monitor how often a person is pressing the brake and gas pedals, as well as car buttons. Ford could then use all of that information to assess how hard drivers are working behind the wheel.
“In this way, we could create an intelligent ‘do not disturb’ ability,” Stremolo said. Essentially, your car would measure how much is going on around you while you’re behind the wheel. If you’re busy responding to traffic and you get a phone call, your car would automatically send the call to voicemail, letting you keep your attention focused on the road.
Ford’s Stremolo said the company wouldn’t save any of the health information it collects. The data would be used solely to analyze a driver’s performance and then be discarded.
Keeping your eyes on the road
Jaguar is also looking out for ways to keep drivers’ attention on the road.
By measuring your heart rate while you’re behind the wheel, Jaguar’s Matt Jones explained, the company could gauge your stress and fatigue levels to see whether you are likely to experience road rage or fall asleep at the wheel and then, in either case, help you avoid it.
Jaguar says it’s also studying a means of measuring a driver’s brainwaves to combat highway hypnosis. Also debuted at CES in January, the feature — which Jaguar calls Mind Sense — would rely on special sensors in your car’s steering wheel that could read your brainwaves.
A specialized piece of software would then be able to parse your brainwaves to see whether you are concentrating, daydreaming, or tired.
Eliminating drunk driving
Automakers aren’t the only ones interested in using biometric data to keep drivers safe. The National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA) is looking into ways to stop people from driving while drunk by preventing them from starting their cars in the first place.
A system called the Driver Alcohol Detection System for Safety (DADSS) would use either your breath or fingers to measure your blood alcohol level. If it’s above 0.08 percent, your car won’t start.
The breath-based system is being developed by Autoliv Development AB, and uses a infrared light beams to analyze the breath you exhale to see whether the concentration of alcohol is too high.
According to the NHTSA, the system would be sensitive enough to measure your breath without making you do anything special; you’d just slide into the driver’s seat and the system would take care of the rest. The sensors would also be positioned so that the system measures the breath of the driver, not of any drunk passengers.
A touch-based detection system is being developed by Takata-TruTouch. It would put light sensors on the engine start button that could measure alcohol in your finger’s capillaries.
The goal for the NHTSA program is to eventually have this kind of technology available as a safety option — similar to automatic braking and other driver assist systems — in future vehicles.
Where the rubber meets the road
In the future, such technologies could contribute to a dramatic decrease in the number of accidents caused by driver fatigue, distraction, and drunk driving, not to mention fewer instances of road rage. But they’re still in very early test phases and may never make it into commercial vehicles.
But considering that, in a few short years, we went from listening to music from cassettes to pulling it out of thin air over the Internet, it’s safe to say that at least some of this cutting-edge technology will be available in future cars in one form or another.
Which means when car makers do eventually start adopting this kind of tech, you’ll have the perfect reason to convince your dad to get rid of that God-awful LeBaron.
Seriously, that thing needs to go.
Email Daniel at dhowley@yahoo-inc.com; follow him on Twitter at @DanielHowley or on Google+.
