20 gamers participated: BrainTech Paves the Way for Real Racers Project

―93.6% have failed to achieve their dream of becoming a professional racer, and now eSports could be the gateway to this dream.―

• KDDI Corporation
• IROC Corporation
• VIE STYLE Corporation
• Racing Hero Inc.

November 18,2022

KDDI Corporation (headquartered in Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo; Makoto Takahashi, President & CEO; hereinafter "KDDI"), IROC Corporation (headquartered in Nagoya City, Aichi Prefecture; Takuma Koga, CEO; hereinafter "IROC"), VIE STYLE Inc. (headquartered in Sumida-ku, Tokyo; Hiroki Hayashi, CEO; hereinafter referred to as "Racing Hero"), together with many partners including e-sports gamers who enjoy racing games (hereinafter referred to as "e-racer") and automobile manufacturers, have launched a experimental project "e-Racer Project; to Carry Everyone's Dreams" (hereafter, the "Project") from July 20, 2022 to September 26, 2022. The Project was conducted to develop a technology (hereafter, the "Technology") to improve driving techniques in real cars by enhancing the cognitive abilities of the brain through training using BrainTech, which combines brain science and IT, and e-sports. The project is aimed at developing a technology that will improve driving techniques in real-world vehicles.
In this project, we expanded the demonstration experiment [1] conducted in fiscal 2021, and 20 e-racer test drivers participated in the project, measuring their driving times using actual vehicles and other means and conducting brain training for approximately four weeks.
As a result, the 10 e-Racers who received the brain training improved their time by 2.2 times more, compared to the 10 who did not receive the training. This confirmed the effectiveness of the brain training.
In the future, KDDI will use this technology to develop a range of e-sports that have low hurdles to overcome in order to get closer to becoming an actual car racer.
We will support people who challenge themselves by creating brain training apps based on the result of this project.

■70.5% give up due to cost; steep road to becoming a racer

Generally, to become a racer, one starts training in racing karts at an early age, gains experience in real cars as he or she grows up, and then joins a specialized training team.
Therefore, it is said that it is a hard road to achieve the dream of becoming a racer, which requires not only his or her own efforts but also the support of his or her family and a large amount of money.
In a survey conducted by au, 93.6% of those who had aspirations of becoming a car racer said that they could not fulfill them as a career, and 99.0% said that they thought it was too hard to become a car racer.
As for the reasons for giving up, 70.5% of the respondents stated that they gave up because of the cost, 49.5% because they did not know where to start, and 42.5% because they did not have a place to practice. From these results, it can be said that racers are representative of "dreams that are difficult to fulfill due to environmental factors".

■Games are the gateway to becoming a racer. Brain Tech helps you challenge your dreams.

This is why we focused on a training method that uses a driving simulator and Brain Tech to develop the driving techniques required for driving a real car.
Once this method is perfected, the efficiency of growth can be improved by repeating the practice while checking the effect of brain training on a driving simulator through repeated achievements in racing games and other e-sports.
This makes it possible to become a professional racer with much less time and money spent practicing on a real car, changing the conventional wisdom of what was thought to be required to become a racer. And also eco-friendly.

Furthermore, the project has also created opportunities to participate in actual races. e-racer Yuito Sasaki, who participated the Experiment in 2021, will compete in the Toyota Gazoo Racing Yaris Cup West Japan Series at Okayama International Circuit on November 19 and 20, 2022. In addition, the 2 e-Racers who participated in the 2022 project have entered the EV Kart Race to be held at Motor Sports Japan 2022 (hosted by the Japan Automobile Federation (JAF)) on November 19, 2022. By making this project a gateway from e-racer to real racer, we will also support them in their attempts to achieve their dreams.

■Accelerate technology development with automotive, racing and e-sports partners

In addition to four major companies, KDDI, which is responsible for the overall development of this technology VIE STYLE of brain science, IROC, which provides driving simulators and driving technology support, and Racing Hero, which manages e-racer, this project is being conducted with the cooperation of SUBARU Corporation ("SUBARU") and SUBARU Driving Academy (hereinafter referred to as "SDA"), eight companies that have knowledge in various industries, including support for real car training and provision of PCs , will accelerate technological development.

Through this project, au will support many people who have to give up on their dreams for various reasons by using technology to help them take on the challenge of their dreams.

For details, please refer to the attached sheet.
Real Racers Project | au × MOTORSPORT | au (in Japanese only)

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<Attachment>

About the "e-Racer Project to carry everyone's dreams"

1. Outline

The "e-Racer Project to carry Everyone's Dreams" is a project to develop technology to create a path for those who want to become car racers in the future, without giving up due to environmental or economic reasons.
A total of 33 people, including 20 e-racer drivers recruited from the general public and 13 SDA drivers, measured their driving times in real cars and driving simulators, conducted brain training, and advanced the development of this technology.

<The flow of this project>

item	contents	Date conduvted
measurement session (1st round)	The driving time and brain waves were measured at Tsukuba Circuit using an actual car and a driving simulator. In addition, five cognitive task/psychological scale responses were administered to identify cognitive abilities that correlate with driving performance. Based on the measurement results, we identified the cognitive abilities of the training target.	August 1, 2022
brain training (Trainees only)	Assigned 10 participants those who conduct brain training (hereafter referred to as "trainees") and 10 comparison subjects (hereafter referred to as "controls") who did not receive brain training. Brain training was conducted once a week. (4 times in total)	Late August 2022 to mid-September 2022
measurement session (2nd round)	The measurements were taken at the Tsukuba Circuit, as in the first round.	September 26, 2022

2. Technology development in this project

(1) Contents of verification in this project

In this project, the following two programs were conducted simultaneously with a total of 33 people, including 20 people recruited from the general public and 12 SDA drivers, in order to verify this technology.

program	contents
(1) Confirmation of the reliability of the verification results for FY2021	We implemented the same curriculum as in FY2021 for participants recruited from the general public, and confirmed whether brain training (neuro-feedback training + cognitive training) would lead to improved driving times on the driving simulator.
(2) Confirmation of which driving operation is affected by the contents of the brain training	In order to confirm how brain training (neuro-feedback training) affects which driving operation, not only driving simulator but a real car drive test has conducted.

(2) Verification by SUBARU and SDA

SDA drivers also underwent the same program as the e-racer in a SUBARU-owned training vehicle, and in collaboration with the SUBARU Technical Research Institute, various data acquired by loggers attached to the vehicle, in-car camera images, driving lines using high-precision GNSS, and line of sight information acquired by eye tracking were comprehensively analyzed to confirm the differences from the e-racer verification results.

(3) about brain training

Progress in brain science research, it has been reported that motorsports racers have a faster reaction time than the general public [2]. A recent study of more than 2,000 children also suggests that gaming experience is associated with improved cognitive abilities such as working memory and inhibitory control (the ability to restrain actions and reactions). [3].These results suggest that the cognitive abilities of the brain are behind the high performance of driving and e-sports , and that the improvement of actual competition performance through and training is expected.
Based on participants' measurement data, this project developed a training menu to improve [1] sensorimotor skills and [2] emotional regulation skills, which were found to correlate with brain training and driving skill improvement.

<Training Menu>

Training Items	contents
[1] Neuro-feedback [4] and sensory-motor training	After performing neuro-feedback aimed at upregulating a specific frequency band (enhancing the EEG component of that frequency), which has been suggested in previous research [5] to facilitate motor learning, a sensory-motor learning task using a gamepad is performed on a PC.
[2] Emotion control training by neuro-feedback	By using brain information decoding technology that estimates the emotional state of an individual based on the brain waves of a specific emotion induced by oneself, it is possible to perform neuro-feedback that self-induces the desired emotion [6]. By applying this technology, neuro-feedback training is conducted to train the subject to remain neutral even when various emotions are triggered.

(4) Demonstration results

• 1)

  Successfully improved the cognitive function of the subject (Change in training content itself)

  The performance of [1] sensory motor trained by the training group was significantly improved. In addition, it was confirmed that the neuro-feedback of [2] emotional control was also controlled to the target state. This can be interpreted as the success in improving the cognitive function targeted by the developed training program.

• 2)

  Successfully improved race performance through brain training

  The fastest time was measured at Tsukuba Circuit, and the rate of shortening of the fastest time at the second measurement was analyzed when compared to the first measurement.

  <Time shortening rate>

  measurement method	A: Brain training available (Trainee)	B: No brain training (Control)	Rate of improvement in brain training (A/B)
  Real car	6.5% (t (9) =3.79, p<0.1)	2.9% (t (9) =2.13, p=0.06)	Approx. 2.2 times
  simulator	1.7% (t (9) =1.11, p=0.29)	0.13% (t (9) =0.40, p=0.80)	Approx. 13 times

  Especially since it has been effective in reducing driving time in a real car. Brain training has been shown to Compared to e-motorsports, participants showed greater growth potential to improve their driving performance, suggesting that brain training can lead to improved driving performance. On the other hand, in the driving simulator, the results were highly variable and not significant, but the absolute values were observed to have a remarkable improvement compared to the control group.
  The results suggest that developing targeted cognitive abilities through the brain training contributes causally to improved race performance.

  

  <graph: Time shortening rate>

3. Structure

name of company	role
KDDI	Overall project management (overall planning and design, partner arrangement and management, business model design)
IROC	Provision of the racing simulator "T3R Simulator", support for simulator use, and total advisory services such as setting up hypotheses and raising issues from the real driver's point of view
VIE STYLE	Develop and implement EEG analysis and brain training programs
Racing Hero	Management of e-sports players, qualifying races
SUBARU	Drivers attendance, provision of equipment, joint research Using SDA drivers and vehicles, the relationship between the training program and actual driving operations is analyzed jointly with the SUBARU Technical Research Institute.
Intel Corporation, Lenovo Japan Ltd.	Review of the configuration of the simulator and the PC used for EEG analysis and neurofeedback of the athletes, and cooperation with the equipment.
TOM'S Corporation	Utilization of TMS driving simulators and support for actual car training through "Formula College" (planned)
Goodyear Japan Ltd.	Provision of a vehicle for actual training, opportunities to drive in a Yaris Cup car, and lectures by professional drivers (to be implemented).
GOODRIDE MOTORSPORTS	Advisory services for various verifications, provision of experience opportunities for test subjects, and cooperation with contracted driver Masao Yamanaka
Speed Master Co.	Provision of oil for the vehicle used in this project to acquire data on subjects (hereinafter referred to as "measurement vehicle")
Red K Co.	Maintenance of measurement vehicles
Inner eye Inc.	Provide "Sense Plus" system for measuring and analyzing cognitive status and brain wave analysis
MACNICA Inc.	InnerEye's Sense Plus brain wave measurement and analysis support for drivers
Suntory Holdings Ltd.	Provision of "ZONe ENERGY" beverage for participants in the experiment
Commufa eSports Stadium NAGOYA	Provide location and facilities for brain cognitive skills training

4. eSports racer-turned-real racer Tomibayashi's comment

[Yusuke Tomibayashi]

Tomibayashi won the Gran Turismo World Championship in 2016, and in 2018, he entered real car racing as the world's first "eSports Racer and Real Racer" . In the KDDI experiment conducted in FY2021, he cooperated in the development of the project as a mentor.

(Reference)

■"Survey on Car Racers" asked 200 people who had aspirations to be car racers.

<Survey Summary>

• Survey Area:

  Nationwide

• Subjects:

  Men and women, 20-49 years old, who used to be car racers.

• Survey method:

  Internet survey

• Period of the survey:

  June 9, 2022 - June 10, 2022

• Number of samples:

  200 persons

• [1]

  KDDI News Release on March 24, 2022
  e-Motorsports x Brain Tech Demonstration
  ―Improving Driving Techniques with Brain Science and IT, Contributing to the Training of Future Professional Racers― (in Japanese only)

• [2]

  Baur, H., Müller, S., Hirschmüller, A., Huber, G., & Mayer, F. (2006). Reactivity, stability, and strength performance capacity in motor sports. british journal of sports medicine, 40 (11), 906-911.

• [3]

  Chaarani, B., Ortigara, J., Yuan, D., Loso, H., Potter, A., & Garavan, H. P. (2022). Association of Video Gaming With Cognitive Performance Among Children. jama Network Open, 5 (10), e2235721-e2235721.

• [4]

  Neurofeedback: Technology for trial-and-error to achieve the desired brain state while checking one's own brain waves in real time.

• [5]

  Rozengurt, R., Barnea, A., Uchida, S., & Levy, D. A. (2016). Theta EEG neurofeedback benefits early consolidation of motor sequence learning. psychophysiology, 53 (7), 965-973.

• [6]

  Huang, W., Wu, W., Lucas, M. V., Huang, H., Wen, Z., & Li, Y. (2021). Neurofeedback Training with an Electroencephalogram-based Brain-Computer Interface Enhances Emotion Regulation. IEEE Transactions on Affective Computing.

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