USC and BMW Develop Car Sensors that Monitor Vehicle and Driver
By Karla Robinson
October 16, 2012
October 16, 2012
- When that “check engine” icon lights up on your dashboard, you know something’s wrong. But other than that, drivers rarely take note of the hundreds of sensors in their cars that monitor the car’s health.
- “That’s starting to change. Since 2010, the USC School of Cinematic Arts and BMW have been working on Nigel, a Mini Cooper outfitted with 230 sensors that creates a log of everything that happens in the vehicle, letting users see it all via an iPhone and iPad app,” reports Fast Company.
- “Now USC’s Center for Body Computing is getting in on the Nigel project, looking at how the car could be used to monitor driver health as well as vehicle health.”
- Currently, Nigel will keep track of milestones such as the 500th time you use the right blinker or whether you’re a lead foot on the pedals.
- Dr. Leslie Saxon is the chief of cardiovascular medicine at USC Keck School of Medicine and the executive director of the Center for Body Computing. She says the Center for Body Computing is reaching out to sensor companies as it begins working with Nigel.
- “One day, she imagines, a car’s pollution sensors, heart-rate sensors (maybe integrated into the steering wheel), GPS, and oxygen content sensors could all work together to tell drivers if, say, a certain polluted area of the highway affects their health — or if their heart rate goes up every time they arrive home or at the office,” the article explains.
- Ford’s Silicon Valley lab is also working on new ways to utilize sensors and data that emerges from vehicles. “It may not be long before this data becomes available in some form to everyone,” suggests Fast Company.
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