For years, touchscreens, handwriting recognition, and gesture control have been gradually replacing conventional mechanical buttons and switches in the car – to the detriment of road safety. After all, controlling the navigation system, the onboard computer menu or the radio is a distraction.
Bosch has showcased smart cockpit technology that lets drivers concentrate on driving. Eyes can be kept where they should be: on the road.
Artificial intelligence helps transform the human-machine interface (HMI) into a command centre that thinks ahead. Initial functionalities with artificial intelligence feed valuable information into the HMI about the driver, the vehicle and the surroundings. That enables proactive adjustment of displays and controls to any given driving situation. Bosch also draws on this information for the development of automated driving. Here, too, HMI is the core element that allows optimal interplay between people and vehicles.
According to Allianz Centre for Technology, 63 percent of drivers in Germany operate their navigation systems while driving, 61 percent switch through radio stations and 43 percent browse through complicated menus on their onboard computers. Distractions like these are among the most frequent causes of accidents.
At the heart of the HMI is a voice-controlled assistant that responds to natural speech and can even understand dialects. Thanks to natural language understanding (NLU), drivers can talk to the assistant Casey as they would with a passenger. Another virtue of Casey is her ability to think ahead. Drawing on artificial intelligence, she can learn to predict likely destinations depending on the time of the day; or if she is asked to switch on the radio, she knows the driver’s preferences, such as listening to the news in the mornings and music in the evenings.
We perceive 90 percent of our sensory input through our eyesight. That means that, as drivers, we have to have important information directly in our field of vision at the right time. Digital displays are taking over the cockpit. Today, this means more than simply keeping an eye on speed, rpm and driving range. We also need smart algorithms capable of learning, to filter and prioritise content.
When it comes to operating infotainment, air-conditioning and radio, touchscreens and central controllers have a decisive drawback: the driver has to look to enter commands accurately. At a speed of 50km/h, the car will travel 30 metres while the driver’s eyes are taken off the road for two seconds; at 120km/h on the freeway, the “driving blind” distance increases to more than 60 metres.
To solve this, the keys displayed on the Bosch touchscreen feel just like real buttons.The haptic display thus conveys the feeling that the user is adjusting the volume using a real slide control. As a result, drivers can keep their eyes on the road for longer.
Displays, infotainment, voice control – one consequence of the advanced cockpit technology is the increased demands on processing power, wiring and the architecture of onboard networks. In current production vehicles, five, 10 or as many as 15 electronic control units run displays and electronic devices. More processing power is needed to show coordinated information on all displays.
In the future, Bosch will run the entire HMI through a cockpit computer and will integrate more functionalities in a single central processor. That will enable the convergence and synchronisation of the infotainment system, the instrument cluster and other displays, so that any given information can be orchestrated, managed and displayed anywhere in the vehicle at any given time.
In addition, reducing the number of control units also frees up valuable installation space, lowers vehicle weight and shortens the time needed for the development of new cars. And in the future, over-the-air updates will ensure that the cockpit computer and hence the entire HMI is kept u- to-date with the same simple process used for smartphones. 
Read about the development alliance between Bosch and Daimler.
Read about the 5 automotive cloud services which will become standard in connected cars.
