MIT Develops Intelligent Car Co-pilot That Only Interferes If You’re About To Crash

Mechanical engineers and roboticists working at MIT have developed an intelligent automobile co-pilot that sits in the background and only interferes if you’re about to have an accident. If you fall asleep, for example, the co-pilot activates and keeps you on the road until you wake up again.

MIT co-pilot uses an on-board camera and laser rangefinder to identify obstacles. These obstacles are then combined with various data points such as the driver’s performance, and the car’s speed, stability, and physical characteristics to create constraints. The co-pilot stays completely silent unless you come close to breaking one of these constraints which might be as simple as a car in front braking quickly, or as complex as taking a corner too quickly. When this happens, a ton of robotics under the hood take over, only passing back control to the driver when the car is safe.

This intelligent co-pilot is starkly contrasted with Google’s self-driving cars, which are completely computer-controlled unless you lean forward, put your hands on the wheel and take over.

The video below does a fairly good job of explaining the system: