TEKNIK ELEKTRONIKA

Any driver knows it can be hard to remain calm behind the wheel. But perhaps high-tech tools can help. A new study by MIT researchers, announced Thursday, suggests that driver-assistance technologies lower the amount of stress people feel when behind the wheel.

 

The study, conducted over nine months by researchers in the MIT AgeLab in collaboration with the Ford Motor Company and the New England University Transportation Center (NEUTC), monitored drivers as they conducted two generally stress-inducing maneuvers: parallel parking, and backing out into cross-traffic in a parking garage. When using vehicles equipped with driver-assistance systems, however, drivers had lower heart rates, lower reported perceptions of stress, and in some cases operated vehicles more prudently, compared to the times when they operated vehicles entirely manually.

 

The study involved 84 participants, balanced by age and gender, who were divided into two groups, one for each driver-assistance tool. One set of 42 subjects had to execute a dozen parallel-parking maneuvers each on Massachusetts city streets. They drove a Lincoln MKS equipped with Ford’s Active Park Assist tool, which uses cameras and sensors to gauge the size of parking spots, then automatically turns the steering wheel

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