Adjusting to a post-COVID-19 world, Jaguar Land Rover and the University of Cambridge are developing a no-touch touchscreen for car infotainment systems. The "predictive touch" system uses artificial intelligence and advanced sensors that allow drivers to make selections without actually touching the screen.
In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, people are becoming increasingly germ conscious and many industries are finding ways to adapt, including finding ways for staff and customers to operate on a no-touch basis. Where in previous times, people were quite happy to share things like keypads and touchscreens, fears of transmitting bacteria or viruses via common surfaces are making people reluctant to touch things that other people have touched previously.
Jaguar Land Rover's predictive touch system is designed to figure out what action you intend to take "early in the pointing task." It achieves this by using cameras, radio frequency sensors and eye tracking to provide data to an artificial intelligence system, which is combined with user profiles and environmental conditions to make the prediction before your finger reaches the screen.
According to Jaguar Land Rover, this technology will not only help to reduce the spread of diseases, but make driving safer by reducing distraction and speeding things up, with laboratory and road tests indicating the predictive technology can reduce interaction times by up to 50 percent.
In addition, the technology could have wider applications outside of car cabs to reduce the spread of germs.
"As countries around the world exit lockdown, we notice how many everyday consumer transactions are conducted using touchscreens: railway or cinema tickets, ATMs, airport check-ins and supermarket self-service checkouts, as well as many industrial and manufacturing applications," says Lee Skrypchuk, Human Machine Interface Specialist at Jaguar Land Rover. "Predictive touch technology eliminates the need to touch an interactive display and could therefore reduce the risk of spreading bacteria or viruses on surfaces.
"The technology also offers us the chance to make vehicles safer by reducing the cognitive load on drivers and increasing the amount of time they can spend focused on the road ahead."
Source: Jaguar Land Rover