DHAKA: Australian road safety researchers on Wednesday unveiled a pioneering ‘attention-powered car’ which uses a headset to monitor brain activity and slow acceleration during periods of distraction.

The car, commissioned by the Royal Automobile Club (RAC) of Western Australia, is about to depart on an awareness-raising road trip of Western Australia, a sprawling west coast state accounting for about one-third of the Australian continent.

Lead researcher Geoffrey Mackellar, from neuroengineering company Emotiv, said the car’s accelerator could be overridden by a headset with 14 sensors measuring the type and amount of brain activity which determined whether a driver was distracted.

In the testing phase, drivers were set specific challenges such as using their mobile phone, switching channels on the radio, drinking water or reading a map so that researchers could record their brain activity while doing so, reports The Straits Times.

BDST: 1347 HRS, SEPT 25, 2013
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