Providing Comprehensive Navigational Cues Through the Driving Seat to Reduce Visual Distraction in Current Generation of Semi-autonomous Vehicles

Methods of interaction and information presentation in the automotive context have continuously been evolving in the last decade Essentially, there is an inherent need to design and research in-vehicle systems that complement and natively support a multimodal approach towards driver-vehicle interaction. Basically, most IVI tasks are classified as secondary or tertiary driving tasks, meaning the driver can allocate lower priority to these tasks as they are not time specific. This is because most visually complex secondary tasks may hinder the driver’s ability to focus on the primary task of driving. However, navigation tasks should not be classified as other IVI tasks. These tasks are often time or location specific and interaction with the system in most cases, may not be optional. Therefore, drivers often get visually burdened with excessive information at the most challenging instances. In this research we propose a novel approach towards resolving this issue by developing a Haptic Seat that can provide continuous and timely navigational information without additional visual distraction.