Natural, intuitive finger based input as substitution for traditional vehicle control
Andreas Riener, Philipp Wintersberger · 2011
Both amount as well as dynamicity of content to be displayed in a car increases steadily, forcing manufacturer to change over to customizable screens integrated in dashboard and center console instead of dozens to hundreds of individual control signals. In addition, new requirements such as Internet access in the car or web services accessible while driving invalidates rudimentary display formats. Traditional forms of interaction such as buttons or knobs are unsuitable to respond to dynamic content shown on digital screens, requesting new mechanisms for distraction-free yet effective user (driver) input. We pick up this problem by introducing a novel sensing device allowing for natural, contactless, and eyes-free operation by relating finger movements in the area of the gearshift to screen coordinates. To assess quality features of this interface two research questions were formulated, (i) that the application of such a device would allow for natural, intuitive mouse pointer control in a similar manner than traditional forms of input and (ii) that the interface is insusceptible to varying workload conditions of the driver. Results from experimentation have revealed that, with respect to the first hypothesis, proximity sensing in a two-dimensional plane is a viable approach to directly control a mouse cursor on a screen integrated into the dashboard. A generally accepted conclusion on the assumption that the index of performance of the interface does not change with varying workload (hypothesis ii) cannot be drawn. To simulate different conditions of workload a dual task signal-response setting was used.