Jan 2019

CES 2019: KIA PREPARES FOR POST-AUTONOMOUS DRIVING

• Kia unveiled new in-car tech for the future ‘emotive driving’ era at CES 2019.
• R.E.A.D. System is the automotive industry’s first technology converging human senses-oriented in-cabin environment control and AI-based emotional intelligence.

Kia Motors previewed a range of new technologies developed for the post-autonomous driving era at the 2019 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas.

Kia’s interactive ‘Space of Emotive Driving’ exhibit looks to a future when autonomous driving is the norm and priority is given to improving the human mobility experience. Central to this concept is Kia’s new Real-time Emotion Adaptive Driving (R.E.A.D.) System – a world’s first technology developed based on a joint research collaboration with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Media Lab's Affective Computing group.

R.E.A.D. System can optimise and personalise a vehicle cabin space by analysing a driver’s emotional state in real-time through artificial intelligence-based bio-signal recognition technology. The technology monitors a driver’s emotional state and tailors the interior environment according to its assessment – potentially altering conditions relating to the human senses within the cabin, creating a more joyful mobility experience.

Mr. Albert Biermann, President and Head of Research & Development Division of Kia Motors, said: “We have developed the R.E.A.D. System to create an interactive future mobility in-cabin space by converging cutting edge vehicle control technology and AI-based emotional intelligence. Consequently, R.E.A.D. will enable continuous communication between drivers and vehicles through the unspoken language of ‘emotional feeling’, thereby providing an optimised human senses-oriented space for drivers in real-time.”