Market trends and business prospects

The human-machine interface is a computer screen through which humans can control the machine. It can be a screen on a tablet or desktop computer, or even a wearable device such as a smart watch.

The human-machine interface in the industry is mostly in the form of tablet computers, and there are also many desktop human-machine interfaces. More and more developers release wearable human-machine interfaces, but the number is very small at present.

The reason why mobile human-machine interfaces seem to be favored is that they can be located near the machine, or the user can approach the machine while using the device to directly control it in real time or program it to perform any operation at a later time. 

But in this article, we will look at the HMI in the car, which is a growing market with increasingly complex technologies and more competition than ever before.

Although to some readers, HMI may mean mobile tablets, our main concern is that in old language, car dashboards or cockpits, some people prefer to call them the cockpit, even though the cockpit used to be in an airplane So we will stick to the dashboard, in connected cars.

Brand new KITT 

Some readers may remember that David Hasselhoff starred in a TV show called "Knight Rider" in the early 1980s, which featured a talking car called KITT Features cars.

Although KITT has a very advanced and impressive dashboard or HMI, as the number of connected cars continues to increase, the actual reality technology has now surpassed it.

This means that, in some ways, the in-vehicle HMI market is completely new.

So far, drivers have not been able to manage and control their cars to this degree through the dashboard.

In the past, you might use the HMI in the car to control the heating or radio, now you can use augmented reality technology to display maps and other information inside the windshield.

If this technology becomes popular, we may see information about traffic, weather, and other information displayed inside the car’s windshield. It can be said that this information can help drivers make better decisions without compromising safety. Driving decisions.

But even without moving to the big screen, the dashboard provides enough working space for technical developers.

Even from the perspective of someone who is not an engineer, the dashboard in most cars still looks like more changes or improvements can be made.

As everything, including cars, becomes computerized, it is easy to imagine that car dashboards will eliminate all sliders, buttons, and other physical controls, which are to some extent remnants of the mechanical systems of the past.

Computers enable developers to virtualize these buttons and controls, so in theory, there is only one large screen left on the dashboard.

This is exactly what many automakers are working on.

The first, or possibly the first to introduce a fully virtualized dashboard is Audi.

The German car giant launched a "fully integrated HMI solution" for its Q8 sports hatchback earlier this year (main image).

Audi said that the interface "seamlessly" integrates the Android operating system and provides a series of information services, such as maps, messages and calls. Of course, there is music.

When choosing Android, Audi aligns with the Google developer community.

The virtual dashboard can use maps from the Here database (Audi is a part of it), or it can call the Google Maps database.

The entire platform is open, so any developer can build applications, and drivers can download them to their car dashboard just like using a smartphone.

Virtual dashboards are not new, and automakers started developing them when the first smartphones came out a few years ago. ut while

However, before the virtualization of mechanical buttons and switches was limited, the entire dashboard is now virtualized-there are no buttons or anything other than the touch screen.

This means that device vendors such as Garmin and TomTom provide small HMIs to view maps and get directions, and if they want to be part of a new in-vehicle system, they must integrate with the car manufacturer's new dashboard (possibly as an app).

Or, they can establish contacts with other suppliers in the automotive market (such as Bosch by TomTom) and become part of their integrated products.

Another possibility is to integrate additional functions into their devices, such as augmented reality or projection.

For example, Harman invested in a company called Navdy last year, which develops augmented reality technology for cars.

The equipment shown by the company includes a small screen showing illustrations of the road ahead and incoming messages. It is called a head-up display or HUD, and it is another new and growing market.

The HUD can do at least some things that the Audi dashboard can do, but in a separate, subsequently acquired device, it is not integrated with the car dashboard in the manufacturing phase.

This type of device is useful in cars currently on the market, rather than new devices with virtual dashboards that Audi and other companies are developing.

Although Audi chose Google and Android, Harman was recently acquired by Samsung, and during certain accounting periods, Samsung sold more smartphones than Apple.

Samsung acquired Harman because it wanted to enter the automotive market, and Harman is the so-called Tier 1 supplier in the automotive industry-which means that it supplies directly to original equipment manufacturers. The second-tier company supplies to the first-tier company, and so on.

Obviously, like Google, Apple, and other smartphone manufacturers, Samsung sees cars as a huge market opportunity, and since Harman is a large supplier of in-car entertainment systems, it is not enough to buy the company for $8 billion. Surprising.

At the same time, Google has licensed its autonomous driving technology to Fiat Chrysler, one of the world's largest auto companies.

For those who may not know, Google has made a smartphone called Pixel.

Apple has had an in-vehicle user interface system called CarPlay for about seven years. It can now be found in a variety of cars, including those made by Audi, BMW, Renault, Lincoln, and many other companies.

Sony, which has never directly set foot in this market before, seems to be preparing to launch "Xperia on Wheels."

Xperia is the brand name of Sony's smartphone system, but the company can launch it as an automotive product, similar to what other smartphone manufacturers are doing.

With Sony’s renewed interest in robotics, the electronics giant seems more likely to seek to establish contacts with automakers.

Of course, Sony does make in-car music systems, some of which are likely to be integrated by manufacturers, but it may now be looking to transfer its smartphone technology to develop devices and systems that provide more features—perhaps even the car’s own.

What's in the dashboard?

A topic may be too complicated to be discussed in depth in an article. However, even though the virtual dashboard may only have one screen for users to view and touch, behind the dashboard is a very complex set of state-of-the-art electronics and calculations. system.

IHS Markit estimates that the automotive dashboard market is worth about 37 billion U.S. dollars, but there is still a long way to go because the research company predicts that the market will almost double to 62 billion U.S. dollars by 2022.

Because the internal structure is so complex, automakers are looking to simplify the process of integrating many different components from the various suppliers they rely on.

Reuters quoted IHS Markit Chief Automotive Analyst Mark Boyadjis as saying: "The complexity of designing ten different systems from ten different suppliers is no longer what automakers want to do."

Boyadjis estimates that in the future, automakers will reduce the number of suppliers from about 10 to two to three.

Who can say that those two or three suppliers will not come from Silicon Valley instead of the traditional Tier 1 automotive supplier category?

The prospect of being replaced by computer technology giants has clearly stimulated the vitality of Tier 1 automotive suppliers. These suppliers are racing to adopt newer, more computer-oriented, and more software-oriented development models—except for the mechanical engineering system they have been using, which uses dozens of year.

The advantage of traditional suppliers is of course that they have more mechanical experience than potential challengers.

Dashboards that display maps and other content that a smartphone or HUD can display are very good, but in the end they are likely to display real-time information about the internal workings of the car, perhaps to see if it needs any maintenance work, or to optimize the driving experience.

As they said, here, Silicon Valley is also thinking outside the box.

For example, Apple has reached an agreement with General Electric to support the development of Predix applications for iOS (ie iPhone and iPad).

It seems natural to think that one of the next or future steps is to integrate these applications into CarPlay.

Since applications built on Predix are mainly used to monitor and manage industrial machinery, it seems to be a suitable platform for developing the same applications as cars.

Submitted as follows: Miscellaneous, News, Traffic Tagged as: Audi, Car, Human Machine Interface, Virtual Dashboard

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