Calling All Cars! Transforming The Auto Industry with HMI

The automotive sector continues to write a legacy rich with evolution, and IT systems remain vital for the industry to achieve its goals of performance, safety, innovation, and green initiatives. Automotive experts have effectively partnered with software specialists to optimize safety and performance. As we continue to rely on technology within all facets of daily life, it is imperative that software programming efficiently drives these tech innovations and produces optimized features.

Software designers have worked to connect drivers to vehicles in unprecedented ways, closing the gap between machine and man to ultimately streamline how we communicate with and utilize today’s automobiles, which are rife with new tech advancements. Human Machine Interface (HMI) and Advanced Driver Assistance (ADAS) remain at the forefront of the automotive sector’s newest innovations.

Automotive HMI Is Innovating The Industry

Onboard navigation systems are standard equipment on today’s vehicles. Still, it took careful design and implementation from HMI developers and automotive professionals to create an efficient system that drivers heavily rely on during daily operations. Technology-based enhancements have an extensive history in the automotive sector. Thanks to the advent of electric vehicles, they have been used to optimize safety equipment and even reevaluate and change how vehicles are powered.

HMI seeks to revolutionize how drivers are connected to vehicles. The automotive sector is working to transform the relationship between drivers and vehicles, reduce the practical image, and create a partnership of a more personalized connection. Programmers have optimized voice-operated systems (VOS) to complete more tasks than merely direct a driver thru traffic.

Today’s modernized VOS enables hands-free phone dialing. AI-assisted technology can curate entertainment and restaurant recommendations and even provide audible reminders for critical vehicle maintenance, such as transmission fluid changes.

Top HMI Features for Modernized Motor Vehicles

Despite impressive technology enhancements and software-based innovations, the industry must prepare to deploy fully autonomous vehicles. However, continued efforts to optimize HMI and implement its features of full communication with drivers are imminent.

The following are key HMI features modernizing motor vehicles.

• 3D Haptic Technology. New designs enable monitoring and alerting drivers of critical maintenance, impending road threats, and collisions. Haptic tech can create tactile sensations, such as vibration, to alert a driver without adding to driver distraction. One major auto manufacturer utilized computer progammed sensors to detect sudden vehicle lane departures and impending collisions and send vibration-based alerts to the driver’s seat.

• Optimized Voice-Operated Systems. The demand for optimized voice-controlled systems grew so strongly that major auto manufacturers have touted this feature as standard equipment. Drivers can seamlessly enter and navigate directions, send and receive emails, place phone calls, and play music with minimal distraction.

• Intelligent Speed Assist (ISA). Collecting data via GPS-linked cameras and having the sensors measure vehicle speed enables instant feedback for drivers to maintain safe operating speeds. Drivers exceeding speed limits receive haptic-based warnings, such as the pedal becoming more resistant to the driving force. The feature is designed to mitigate collisions due to excessive speed.

• Digital Dash Gauges. Digital instrument gauges remain standard equipment in today’s vehicles, but HMI innovators have worked on programming and personalizing instruments according to driver habit. Monitored and stored information such as average speed, trip duration, and average fuel consumption can be adjusted via directions from the existing onboard computer.

Active Driver Assistance Leads Next Wave of Innovation

Active Driving Assistance (ADAS) is leading the way for the auto industry’s newest innovations to enhance the driver experience. Continued developments of fully autonomous vehicles have raised more questions than answers, and the industry has not unveiled an autonomous vehicle to the general public. Still, ADAS, as the central vehicle communication command, continues building the foundation for vehicle autonomy.

ADAS is not marketed as a self-driving vehicle, but the innovation features lane-keeping assist and adaptive cruise control. Lane assist is designed to steer a vehicle if sensors monitor the vehicle drifting, but the industry is marketing lane assist as a safety enhancement.

Adaptive cruise control (ACC) automatically adjusts a vehicle’s speed based on sensor monitoring data that identifies the vehicle ahead and its speed and distance. Artificial intelligence is utilized to recognize driver patterns and compile data.

HMI Developers have seamlessly integrated this innovation with existing onboard navigation systems, enabling manufacturers to reduce bottlenecks if working to refine ACC and add the feature to their flagship models.

ADAS may be the foundation of an autonomous vehicle’s communication system. Developers will retain a critical role in further refining its development as the auto industry continues its path to the next wave of innovation.

Market Growth Drives Auto Industry Tech

IT systems continue driving the auto industry’s goals of enhancing safety, performance, and ambitious, innovative designs. The role of IT professionals is magnified due to media campaigns touting automotive HMI enhancements that will transform and further modernize today’s cars and trucks. With Global Market Insights, Inc. reporting automotive HMI design market share to exceed $27 billion by 2024, software developers and auto industry officials are poised to capitalize on a lucrative and sustainable revenue stream.

As the auto industry continues to build upon its tech-based safety equipment, bring autonomous vehicles to market, and reevaluate the ‘driver experience’, it’s imperative to seek the services of expert-level software developers that can seamlessly implement these enhancements and exceed expectations by bringing the industry’s goals to fruition.