TECH/CAR SPECIAL..HIGH TECHNOLOGY HORIZONS

HIGH TECHNOLOGY HORIZONS 

Simply Wave Your Hand & Info’s Yours

Gesture-based tech in a car’s infotainment system will be the future

    On the latest car panel consoles that Harman (a global provider of infotainment solutions) is working on, you just need to wave your hand in front of the panel to get information on the weather. Another movement of the hand – this time a circling gesture – can pull up your telephone directory. And if you gesture the letter A, the console will read out all the names beginning with A. You can show a stop sign when the name you wish to pull out is read.
Harman, like many other car infotainment providers, are ready with gesture-based features like this, marking the next step in the technological evolution of car infotainment systems. “Harman’s gesture recognition technologies are market-ready and we are in discussions with several automakers,” says Darrin Shewchuk of Harman.
While Harman’s gesture-based technology is yet to be integrated in vehicles, what is available today is a touch-based version where all the above features will work. “For instance, you can use a touch pad on your console to simulate the shape of a letter and the system will recognise this. Harman is working with automakers such as Audi and BMW who are deploying this technology now,” says Shewchuk. “The next phase of gesture recognition will not require “touch” and will recognise your hand movements to conduct various shortcuts or commands,” he says.
Gesture-based features, which have been developed to perfection in gaming consoles like the Microsoft XBox, may be the key differentiator in future cars as carmakers battle for a bigger space in the luxury and mid-car segments.
“In addition to Bluetooth and Wi-Fi, which are already available in cars, research is being done to introduce a combination of voicebased services and Kinect to introduce smarter features,” says Sanjay Gupta, senior veep & global head, Product Engineering Services, Wipro Technologies, whose company works with the three of the top carmakers in Japan and the US among others, and has the know-how and expertise to integrate Kinect-like gestures in cars. One company that has hinted at the deployment of gesture movements is Ford. While Ford’s Asia Pacific & Africa Sync Engineering manager Rod Phillips says that their company is not conducting any research on integrating Kinect in the Ford vehicles, he says that “…we do see an opportunity in gesture-based recognition to help with certain functions such as the new hands-free Liftgate which is launching in North America this month on the 2013 Ford Escape.”
Drivers of the 2013 Escape just need to show a kicking gesture at the bottom of the boot of their vehicles (without actually kicking it) to open in. The hassle of hunting for their car keys or dropping the packages the drivers might be carrying in both their hands, can be eliminated by this technology which Ford calls Liftgate.
What’s stopping global carmakers and OEMs to deploy these Kinect-like gaming features are the stringent laws in the US and Japan on passenger safety as law-makers feel that these features are added distractions for the driver which can prove fatal. “A driver cannot lose sight of the road for more than two seconds,” explains Sanjay.
A car infotainment engineer who had worked on the latest Audi8, which he describes as “a real beauty”, told ET on Friday that “there may be many Kinect-like gestures being worked on by many firms. Getting past the legalities for its implementation can be a sure test”. Vijay TP, lead engineer, Auto Team at HCL Tech, quoting the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration states in his report (on gestures & touchless sensors) that “80% of automobile accidents and 65% of near-accidents involve at least some form of driver distraction within 3 seconds of a crash. Some of the main actions that cause distracted driving are changing radio stations, adjusting the CD or MP3 player settings by reaching to the infotainment system.”
“However, touchless gesture recognition in a vehicle improves safety,” he states.
While safety issues and strict laws are the speedbreakers holding back plementation, automotive experts are experimenting with different uses. Perhaps the most exciting application would be in automatic parking. There are different levels of automatic parking. There is a fully-automatic hands-off version, like the Park4U system introduced by French company Valeo, one of the world’s top auto-suppliers.
“The latest version of Park4U system (of Valeo), which is available on Volkswagen Touran and Sharan and the Audi A7 and A6, uses ultrasonic sensors located in the front and rear bumpers to precisely calculate the length of the parking slot available and manoeuvres the car into the slot,” the company stated in an email response to ET.
“The Park4U needs only 40 cm of space on either end of the vehicle to be able to park. The driver remains in control of the speed, but the system takes control of the steering,” the company said.
Hand gestures can play a crucial role in parking facilities like this, says Debashish Mukherjee, principal consultant, automotive, Wipro. “The driver can see the car’s rear view on his console by switching on the cameras with a hand gesture,” he explains . “Once the driver parks the vehicle, the console can be switched off with a hand gesture. This helps save power,” he says. “These gesture-related features are still in the R&D stage,” says Debashish.
Another probable application for Kinect-like gestures is in helping drivers who tend to fall off to sleep. “There are sensors which keep track of the driver’s eyes. When it senses that the eyes are closing, a voice-alarm is sounded off, waking up the driver,” explains Debashish. Bundling voice and gestures in the car infotainment systems can be challenging. “Cutting off noise and eco-suppression are crucial to ensure that the car is able to follow the right voice commands,” says Sanjay. “This is no rocket science but it involves various layers of integration,” he says.
“The voice software must be smart enough to recognise a driver’s voice even if there are 3-4 people talking in the background. This is a feature which Microsoft has perfected in its XBox Kinect consoles,” says Debashish, explaining why carmakers rely on Kinect-like gestures to create smarter features. And when it comes to voice, infotainment experts are simplifying features too. “Unlike earlier, where you had to mention the city, street and place to get directions, the latest navigational tech will pop up the details by mentioning where you are,” explains Debashish.
While all these exciting hand-features may reach Indian cars only very late, there will be more cars with modified voice-based platforms available here soon. According to Ford’s Philips, “Sync (infotainment systems with voice-based features) will debut in India with the EcoSport launch.” The Sync helps drivers pull up information on addresses and songs based on voice commands. “The Global Fiesta in India allows you to control various functions through a voice recognition system,” says Phillips.
Integrating these high-end tech features in Indian conditions can be challenging. Experts here say: “The noise levels in India are very high. Because of this, voicebased controls can be difficult to operate.”

NEENU ABRAHAM BANGALORE ET 120730