At this year’s Goodwood Festival of Speed, UK-based technology start-up, Sensum, publicly displayed the real-time emotions of supercar and superbike racers in the Hillclimb challenge.

Participants wore biometric sensors that provided data for Sensum’s ‘empathic AI’ algorithms to analyse live. Sensum then produced an on-going score of each racer’s emotional response to the track, ranging from ‘ice cool’ to ‘wild’.

Sensum’s technology interpreted the incoming data to generate a map of the emotional journey along the track.

The ‘wildest’ emotional response levels were concentrated around the two main corners of the track. The company says this is an encouraging finding for the experimental technology behind the project because the wildest emotions occur at the track sections that are reported as being the most challenging.

Another finding was a strong correlation between high levels of ‘wild’ responses and low track times. In other words, the fastest racers were also the most excited or stressed, rather than the calmest. This could suggest that the faster people were performing in a heightened state of alertness, ‘on the edge’ where their performance is optimal.

Sensum says this kind of emotional measurement tech could be applied to future motorsport and also to the development of consumer vehicles.

“Sensum was challenged with connecting motorsport fans with the thrill of the Hillclimb,” said Gawain Morrison, CEO & Co-Founder of Sensum. “We demonstrated how current technology can be used to measure the real-time emotions and body data of vehicle occupants.

“In future we will see many applications of this empathic technology, from life-saving safety features to improved comfort and entertainment for vehicle occupants. In motorsport, we can look forward to an exciting new form of audience entertainment that displays the live emotions of the racers.”

Technology like Sensum’s could provide race teams with data to optimise the health and performance of their racers, and with moment-by-moment analysis of the vehicle occupant’s state, they could learn previously unseen insights such as which parts of the track are the most emotionally challenging, or when racers need to rest.

In the consumer market, Sensum says all major automotive manufacturers are exploring how to integrate this kind of technology into their vehicles. This could save lives – for instance by detecting driver fatigue or intoxication – and also improve the quality of the transport experience.

Sensum’s AI technology interprets data from sources including body biometrics (such as heart rate), facial expressions and voice patterns, combined with contextual data from the surrounding environment.

Source: Motor Trade Aug Edition

9 Aug 2018