Motoring’s future: a hat

Footler’s first car, a 1955 Hillman Minx convertible, had a starting handle, indicator arms and an engine he could maintain himself with a few basic tools. Its design and construction probably had more in common with the Panhard driven by Alfred Vacheron in the 1894 Paris–Rouen road race than with today’s highly engineered machines.

Vacheron’s car is credited with being the first to use a wheel rather than a tiller for steering. Although tillers were not phased out completely for another decade after Vacheron’s experiment, the steering wheel has now remained an integral component of motor vehicle design for well over 100 years.

The basic technique of driving a car has also changed little since Footler’s first driving lesson. We still use pedals to accelerate and stop and we direct our cars with a steering wheel. However, if scientists at the Free University of Berlin AutoNOMOS innovation laboratory have their way, all these could be replaced by a fancy hat.

The researchers used sensors similar to those employed for recording electroencephalograms to distinguish between the bioelectrical patterns for commands such as “turn left”, “turn right”, “accelerate” and “brake”. Sixteen sensors attached to a cap enabled the driver to control the movement of a car with his thoughts.

Raúl Rojas, who heads the project, said: “In our test runs, a driver . . . was able to control the car with no problem — there was only a slight delay between the envisaged commands and the response of the car.”

Many of you, like Footler, will find that “slight delay” deeply worrying, even though the tests were carried out on a disused airfield near Berlin in a car fitted with radar, video cameras and laser sensors. Perhaps it would be better for us to keep a firm grip on our steering wheels and to continue pressing pedals, at least for the time being.