Top Car

TECHKNOW

98 TOPCAR.CO.ZA|January 20 16

DrThomas Müller, vicepresidentfor el ectrics,

electronics and e-propulsion, Volvo, holder of a

PhD in nuclear physics, gazes into his cr ystal ba ll

The next big things

by Volvo’s e-tech guru

CONNECTIVITY ISTHEkey to autonomous driving.

From a Hu man Machine Interface (HMI) perspective

it’s clear you need a safe and intuitive method of

bringing the driver in and out of the controlloop. In

the near future we will not see cars without steering

wheels, and people gazing out of the window. You will see

autonomous driving on some roads, so how do we do the handov er?

If you’re going to allow people to read or browse the internet, maybe

it’s via a programmable cockpit. So the car is in controland you’re

checking your emails on the display. Three kilometres ahead of the

handov er there’s a notification. With 30seconds to gothe emails fade

out and the driving instruments return.

>INTHEfuture there will be a great need for data exchange

between multip le vehicles. You can

buy static information from the

mapping companies, and the cars

will have sensors, but they will also

need real-time dynamic data about

what is happening on the electronic

horizon. They need to be able to

pred ict and to modify their driving

ahead of time, as a good driver does.

This collaboration between different

vehicles won’t be easy – we are all

competitors. Finding the right model

for anonymous data exchange is key.

>OUR CLOUDtechnology will

improve the user experience. There’s

potential for over-the-air active

safety. If somewhere there is an

emer gency-braking situation, or grip

is low, why not communicate that to

the cloud and on toother cars in the

area? Information from the cloud

will also pre-condition a plug-in

hybrid electric car in the right way to

better deploy its available ener gy, using ge o-fencing on zero-

emission zones for example, so the car knows to pres erve charge

and to sh ut off the combustion engine.

>HMI TOOKa big step when Apple intr oduced the iPhone. iDrive

was the automotive equivalent of computers’ mouse and menu

system. It worked beca use people understood the logic from their

computers. Now consumers have learned touchscreen interaction

from their smartphone. A touchscreen gives you two dimensi ons for

controland moreflexibility. The menustructure is much flatter too,

moreintuitive. The next stage is proximity sensing. In navigation

the screen would show only the map, bringing in the menuand

making the relevant part of it bigger as you reach for it, improving

accuracy.

>PEOPLETALKabout a future ba ttery electric car [Volvo will

launch a mid-si ze BEV with a 520km range by 2019] and everybody

talks ab out inductive [wireless] charging. The vision for this

technology is very desirable, certainly in the premium segment. You

arrive at your garage and step out, th e car positions itself perfectly

over the charging coil and that’s it, you’re charging, maybe while

also downloading a software update. It’s possi ble but there are cost

and safety issues. What if the car is charging and your cat walks

between the car and the charger? It’s a very unfortunate situation!

INTERVIEW BYBENMILLER

THOMAS

MÜLLER

What’sthe big idea?

Kirobo is anexperi ment in

human/robot interaction,

featuring voice and facial

recogniti on software

developed by Toyota. He

actually star ted life as a

robot astronaut, and was

sent to the international

space station to cheer

up Japanese station

commander Koichi Wakata.

Now he’s planning to try

to cheeryou up too, while

you’re stuck in traffic.

Why doesToyotathink

weneedcheeringup?

You’re driving a Toyota,

for a star t. More cr ucially,

studie s have shown that

drivers in a bad mood drive

too fast, too clos e to the

car in front and have more

accidents.

HowdoesKirobo plan

toovercomethat?He

has a facial recogniti on

camera just above one

of hi s eyes, and can

identify expressions, so

if you’re fr owning he’ll try

to engageyou in a bit of

helium-voiced chat. He

can understan d speech (as

long as you’re Japanese)

and has a databaseof

phrases.

So, will Kirobo be

standardonthe next

Auris?Sadly not, but

he’s part of a seri ous

experi ment to te st how your

car could interact wi th you.

He may be able to interact

with your sat-nav and

music too. If you haven’t

already hurled him out of

the window, that is.

FRESHTHINKING:Toyota’sin-carrobot

Meet Kirobo. He lives in your cupholder

Kirobostartedlife

inspace. It may

notbethe last

flighthetakes