Study on driver’s braking intention identification based on functional near-infrared spectroscopy

Abstract

Purpose Cooperative driving refers to a notion that intelligent system sharing controlling with human driver and completing driving task together. One of the key technologies is that the intelligent system can identify the driver’s driving intention in real time to implement consistent driving decisions. The purpose of this study is to establish a driver intention prediction model. Design/methodology/approach The authors used the NIRx device to measure the cerebral cortex activities for identifying the driver’s braking intention. The experiment was carried out in a virtual reality environment. During the experiment, the driving simulator recorded the driving data and the functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) device recorded the changes in hemoglobin concentration in the cerebral cortex. After the experiment, the driver’s braking intention identification model was established through the principal component analysis and back propagation neural network. Findings The research results showed that the accuracy of the model established in this paper was 80.39 per cent. And, the model could identify the driver’s braking intent prior to his braking operation. Research limitations/implications The limitation of this study was that the experimental environment was ideal and did not consider the surrounding traffic. At the same time, other actions of the driver were not taken into account when establishing the braking intention recognition model. Besides, the verification results obtained in this paper could only reflect the results of a few drivers’ identification of braking intention. Practical implications This study can be used as a reference for future research on driving intention through fNIRS, and it also has a positive effect on the research of brain-controlled driving. At the same time, it has developed new frontiers for intention recognition of cooperative driving. Social implications This study explores new directions for future brain-controlled driving and wheelchairs. Originality/value The driver’s driving intention was predicted through the fNIRS device for the first time.