Development of an In-Car Environment Control System Using an SSVEP-based BCI with Visual Stimuli Presented on a Head-Up Display

Inattentive driving is one of the major causes of car accidents. In the present study, we proposed a new in-car environmental control system using brain-computer interface (BCI). In a simulated driving situation, the participants could control the car environment by simply staring at a visual stimulus presented on a head-up display, without pressing a button or changing their gaze out of the front screen. In the comparison between manual and BCI control conditions, participants showed better driving performances in the BCI control condition compared to the manual control condition, such as 1) higher reaction rate, 2) shorter reaction time, 3) smaller deviation between the guided trajectory and actual trace, and 4) smaller speed difference between a preceding car and the user’s car. The proposed in-car environment control system showed a possibility that might contribute to a safer driving.