Controlling the Car of the Future
Chris Wild
A
The car is not what it used to be. Styling, safety and performance have undergone radical
changes and improvements in the last 40 years. Drivers from the 1960s, perhaps a Ford
Anglia owner, would recognise that a BMW Series 5 was a car, but that is about as far as their
understanding would go.
What would such a person make of air-bags, navigation, cruise control and rear-seat
entertainment? The evolution which has led to these features is unlikely to slow down any time soon. In fact, in certain areas it may be about to accelerate.
B
One of the areas which is going to exhibit rapid and radical evolution is the car interior, in
particular the interfaces between the car systems and the occupants. The interior systems are
evolving as the
Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) react to a number of factors acting
on the basic idea of the car itself.
C
These factors arise out of a number of external and internal influences, the latter being brought
in by the automotive industry itself:
- economics - cars need to be cheaper to produce and rich in features to sell well
- energy issues - energy efficiency in the design and operation of cars is now a key selling
point for the industry
- consumer connectivity (from within cars) - these are being set by the mobile device market,
not the automotive industry
- safety concerns - governments and insurers are making increasing demands to reduce
accident and mortality rates associated with road use
- congestion in the cities -city authorities require that road traffic is managed, potentially
actively and intrusively, to allow cities to carry on functioning
- market types -non-Western markets and associated cultures such as those in China and
India are becoming the major target for growth in car sales.
D
For car occupants, the first and the most visible impact of the influences described above will
be the way information is presented and how the Human-Machine Interaction (HMI) occurs. As
a result of changing market and consumer demands, a number of new features, and systems
to deliver them, will appear in the car interior in the next decade.
Some of the features we will begin to see will include increasing connectivity to infrastructure
to support security, traffic management and infotainment. As a result, commercial services for
insurance, car maintenance and even advertising will appear in our cars. In-car media systems
will offer multiple web and/or media streams to different parts of the car. Media will be available
for playback in the car from mobile devices, in-car media support or from connectivity.
We should also expect to see systems in place to impose or coach eco-driving as standard.
In the case of electric cars, this will range from systems for locating, scheduling and booking access,
through to charging infrastructure. Such systems may include intelligent and connected agents which
propose alternative modes of transport as a better way to travel under difficult traffic conditions.
E
But with such evolutions comes a major challenge. As more information is brought into the
car, with more diversity of style, priority and urgency, interfacing to these features within the
constraints of the vehicle will require new and innovative methods of interaction, and a new set
of paradigms for the design of in-car HMI.
The challenge here has multiple facets. Firstly, much of the information being presented
is relevant to the driver who is occupied with a critical task, that of safely operating the car.
Secondly, the safety constraints of vehicle design preclude certain styles of technology; it is
not acceptable that a mouse or a keyboard can move freely in space as the result of a rapid
deceleration, during an accident for example. Thirdly, any design approach has to support
cultural localisation in a manner which is economically viable; the basic design paradigm should
be cheaply customisable for Delhi and London alike.
F
All of these evolutions are just the beginning of another round of change to the car as we know
it. We may even see changes to the driving controls themselves; joysticks and fly-by-wire could
soon make their appearance. Like the 1960s Ford Anglia owner, the BMW Series 5 owner of
today will look at cars of 2020 and.wonder where the ignition key is.
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