Steering a Car With Eye Tracking is the Future
Eye tracking studies in the past have shown that people tend to look where they want to go. That is, if there’s an obstacle in the way, you’re better off choosing your line around it rather than staring at the object as you speed towards it. Take high performance driving schools, for example. They teach you to look where you want to go because your car (or whatever you happen to be steering – skis, a boat, etc) ends up going in the direction of your sight.
Some researchers at the Freie Universtitat Berlin, in association with SensoMotoric Instruments, have developed a minivan that is controlled with eye tracking. Using EyeDriver software, they created the “Spirit of Berlin,” a 2007 Dodge Grand Caravan that uses a driver’s eye movement to steer the vehicle.
Drivers can steer the van in one of two modes – “free ride” or “routing.” Free ride is based on eye movement alone, and the longer you gaze in one direction, the more your vehicle steers in that direction. Sounds interesting and actually quite unsafe if you think about it. Drivers are really supposed to be scanning the road for obstacles, traffic, exits, signs, etc., and this complicates your driving experience if you need to keep your eyes focused solely on where you want to go. Apparently, the system works better if you have a fixed gaze, say, on a car you are following, directly in front of you. Still, this seems like it could create some problems, as a safe driver still needs to scan.
When the car is put into routing mode, it uses artificial intelligence to control itself, and relies on the driver to make decisions at intersections or forks in the road. If the driver looks in one direction for three seconds, the car steers in that direction. The system is set to automatically stop the car if a driver takes their eyes off the road or closes them. This sounds quite terrifying if you ask me. In fact, while we’re all for experiments and progress in eye tracking technology, this seems downright dangerous for both the driver and especially those others that may find themselves on the road with a distracted, eye tracking driver, but maybe researchers are on to something.
There are plenty of driving systems built into cars these days that hand some of the control of the vehicle over to automated systems. Cruise control, auto acceleration and braking, lane departure prevention – these are a few features that have been incorporated into vehicles now on the road. And while research like the Spirit of Berlin may seem incredibly scary in practice, it’s really the theory behind it that can lead to small steps forward in technology and solutions to vehicular problems. It’s interesting to study these things, and perhaps it can lead to slight improvements or supplementary ideas to help the average driver. Who knows? Maybe in a few years we’ll all be driving with our eyes. Just remind me to stay off the roads when that happens.
Steering a car by sight–car tracks eye movements
Related articles:
- Driving Around the Bend: Eye Tracking for Curve Navigation
- The Future of Eye Tracking & Personal Transportation