For opera lovers, AIDA brings to mind visions quite different from a traffic jam in the city or on the highway, but for MIT researchers, it stands for Affective Intelligent Driving Agent, a robot designed to assist us in the traffic, giving us advice on our behavior at the wheel.

The driving assistant robot AIDA, placed on the car’s dashboard and connected to a navigation system, analyzes frequent routes, such as for example the way from home to work and vice versa, as well as environmental and weather conditions, characteristics of the surroundings and presence of businesses such as hotels, shopping centers etc. along the way.

By examining the data received from the car, AIDA learns the characteristics of our driving style, and observing the driver’s facial expressions, it can detect whether we are anxious or relaxed. AIDA communicates with the driver by means of a wink, a frown or a scared expression, to tell him that all is OK, or that he should slow down a bit.

By merging territory data received from the navigation system with this behavioral analysis, AIDA will learn to know your driving habits, the location of your home, your office and your usual destinations, and will give you directions, for example, to reach your favorite shopping mall avoiding a traffic jam.

It can also advise us to drive in a less aggressive way, thus saving energy, inform us when the tank is running out of fuel or when the car needs a general check-up.
To make it short, AIDA helps us make sure that the way from home to work is not the beginning of yet another stressful day, and that the way back home is the beginning of our well deserved rest. And with such a cute smile, how can you not love it?