Multimodal Connected Car Opens Growth Opportunities for Displays, Interfaces
SANTA CLARA, Calif. -- The automotive display market is moving to a multimodal model, experts said at an IHS conference. Drivers will interact with their vehicles' infotainment systems in numerous ways, IHS analyst Brian Rhodes said. Steering wheel controls, proximity/gesture recognition, head-up displays, touchpads, haptic feedback, touchscreens, speech recognition, multifunction controllers and instrument cluster displays will drive the human-machine interface market, he said. Voice control, proximity sensing and touchscreens will continue to grow in usage, although familiar knobs and buttons won’t disappear, said Rhodes, who called basic buttons “still relevant and important” in vehicles. As multimodal interaction grows, it opens up possibilities for differentiation in the user experience, Rhodes said.
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Virtual reality, gesture recognition and brain computer interface loom, Rhodes said. “We’re shifting, and combining aspects" of different interfaces -- buttons, knobs, displays, touchscreens and speech -- creating an integrated "multimode cockpit,” he said. An IHS survey showed that 46 percent of respondents want a head-up display in their next vehicle and more than half of U.S. drivers are interested in integrated touchscreens. IHS projects 68 million vehicles will be sold with a center stack display worldwide in 2021.
Consumers demand intuitive car interfaces, Rhodes said. “Drivers know that their smartphones are distracting” but half of consumers surveyed said they still prefer to use their phones directly. That could indicate the vehicles aren’t as intuitive as drivers want them to be, Rhodes said.
Innovation in displays will occur in new places, said Rambo Jacoby, Nvidia automotive technology manager. Many new cars have a navigation display, some have hybrid digital instrument clusters and some have rear-seat infotainment, but over the next few years displays will also pop up on the driver's side for controls, Jacoby said. Entry-level cars today have one display at most, and that will move up to one to three displays in the near term, he said.
Safety content will be a big technology driver in the automotive space, Jacoby said, citing sensors. Nvidia sees safety as one of the biggest drivers for increased use of displays in the car, he said. Challenges facing the automotive market before making these types of use cases a reality include bandwidth, a link between the system on a chip and the displays, and the battery to power it all, Jacoby said.
Walter Sullivan, head of Elektrobit’s Innovation Lab in Silicon Valley, addressed the incongruity of discussing more displays in a vehicle while also stressing the need for driver safety. He noted that people interact with a vehicle differently than with a mobile device, and the information has to be “very glanceable” for quick consumption. “It can’t be an engaging experience that draws people into the device,” he said.