With the technological advancements, driving becomes easier in comparison to bygone years. There are sensors, navigation system, cocoonlike qualities, great shocks…even a black box for the cars, but now the latest endeavor is from the Yale University engineers who aim a subtle approach to signal a potential danger: motors and movable cams that send signals straight from the seat back to your back. The technique will be helpful to avoid accidents at the blind spots.
This technique has been developed contrary to today’s blind-spot monitors that flash warning signal on the rear view mirror or on car’s dashboard. The reason being, visual sense is already saturated in a car and an alert flashed before you about something behind you will ask the driver to translate the information, costing crucial response time as well as mental effort that could distract you from other dangers, says John Morrell, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering at Yale.
The Morrell’s lab has designed a car seat for the purpose, which is inspired by his work at Segway and the technique uses vibrating motors and servos that press on the driver’s back to signal the location of a following car. Also, a demo structure developed to simulate incorporates a modified car seat, a steering wheel, foot pedals, and a computer running an open-source driving simulator called TORCS (The Open Racing Car Simulator).
The technique works with twenty cellphone-motor tactors arranged in a rectangular array across the back of the seat that inform driver about a car coming up directly behind by activating right or left vibrators, depending on the location of the car. Additionally, two cams on each side add to the signal strength by pressing on the driver’s rib cage when a car shows up on either side.
