Stepping into a Ferrari’s sleek cockpit is enough to set anyone’s pulse racing. But what if that was a bad thing? Italy’s most illustrious motoring marque is working on an in-car system that monitors a driver’s mental state behind the wheel, according to a British car magazine. Effectively, future mind-blowing Ferraris may also read a driver’s mind.
The idea behind the device is thaat Ferrari drivers may get just a little excited—go figure—and this heightened state could lead them to drive more dangerously. The way it works is that a series of in-cabin sensors will monitor a driver’s heart rate, blood pressure, facial reactions and brain activity. The sensors will act to increase safety by detecting not only a state of excitement but also by monitoring a driver’s alertness, or indeed tiredness, by way of their blink rate. The car’s performance is then automatically adjusted through the car’s stability control systems.
According to Autocar, Ferrari has filed a series of global patent applications that state: “Drivers tend to miscalculate—in particular, overestimate—their driving skill and, more importantly, their psychophysical condition, with the result that driver-selected dynamic vehicle performance simply reflects the driver’s wish, as opposed to the driver’s actual psychophysical condition and proficiency.”
It continues: “The biometric sensors may comprise a piezoelectric measuring device for measuring the driver’s respiration, a device for measuring the driver’s blood pressure and heart rate, a television camera for monitoring the driver’s eyes (blink rate) to determine the driver’s alertness, a device for monitoring the electric activity of the driver’s brain, a device for recording the driver’s surface temperature and a device for recording the conductivity of the driver’s skin (to determine the degree of perspiration).”
While stopping short of suggesting that the car ultimately will drive itself, Ferrari’s ingenuity takes the concept of driver and car connectivity to a new level. Although Ferrari says the technology will be “non-invasive,” drivers presumably will be able to monitor their own performance by feeling out the car’s responsiveness. Effectively, the car’s performance will be a measure of their own. Spooky, huh?
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