Inside the Autonomous Vehicle

September 1, 2016

Steve Potter

As self-driving technology eventually becomes reliable and safe, the role of the human driver will change dramatically. Instead of acting as a full-time operator, the driver will become a part-time operator and part-time passenger — ultimately transitioning to a full-time passenger who simply occupies the vehicle while it is in motion.

Current automotive design trends are taking cues from today’s evolving driver/passenger experience. For example, recent growth of ride-hailing services, like Uber and Lyft, ride-sharing and peer-to-peer renting is transforming the car ownership/operator dynamic, including how interior amenities and features are designed.

These trends are accelerating a shift in the driver’s role from vehicle operator to occupant, raising the question: What does the inside of the car look like when drivers aren’t spending their time steering, accelerating, and braking?

Some estimates indicate that eliminating those operations will give the average driver about 50 minutes per day of “free time” to simply ride inside the vehicle as a passenger.

But how will that extra time be used? Clues can be seen in the off-highway industry, where driverless GPS-guided tractors and combine harvesters are becoming more widely used. Inside the cab, operators are tweaking the quantities of fertilizer and water being applied to crops, or analyzing other application factors.

The long-haul truck industry also offers a model of how interiors are changing. With operators on the road four to five days at a time, their truck cabs are becoming a high-tech home away from home — complete with appliances, sleeping quarters, and complete digital entertainment and information systems designed to be stowed away during operation and easily accessed when needed.

It’s easy to imagine that operators of self-driving cars will want innovations that support passenger activities such as listening to or watching digital media, working on laptops or tablets, or talking on the phone or wirelessly through the cabin itself. The orientation of the passenger vehicle interior will change — from two or three rows fixed and forward-facing, to flexible seating and cabin features that can face forward, face inward, and change based on each trip’s purpose, duration, and passenger comfort preferences.

The transformation of the driver’s role in an autonomous environment will present a number of design challenges in three areas of automotive interior design:

• The quantity and quality of “touch points” will increase. Touch points are those components and areas of access that the user interacts with — such as a glove box handle, an LED display, or a center console.

If the driver can cut their time at the wheel in half, then those minutes will be spent doing something else. That could triple the number of application points inside the vehicle, which will require extensive re-engineering of the physical appearance and elements of each additional touch point.

From a design standpoint, fewer obtrusive electrical and mechanical controls will be needed, because they won’t need to protrude from the interior to be accessed while driving. Instead, design focus will shift to streamlining the interior space with more elegant styling. Rather than considering if a latch point must be visible or concealed, the designer will aim for a clean appearance and smooth operation. Designing in a standardized mechanism, such as a hidden latching solution, for instance, allows the same mechanism to be used throughout the vehicle, but exterior styling can be easily changed by modifying the touch point. This allows consistent operation while satisfying design requirements, with a look that matches the cabin’s interior styling.

• Personal space inside the cabin will be designed for greater flexibility. It’s easy to imagine the cabin interior evolving into its own unique environment — reminiscent of the approach to airline first-class travel “pods” available on long-duration flights — with its own lighting and digital landscape to enhance the passenger experience. Front seats will not just be designed for 100% recline, but also to rotate to create a limousine-like conversation area or a collaborative workspace. Cabin entertainment systems will also change to accommodate the autonomous environment.

The increasing use of portable devices is influencing many automakers to replace traditional embedded entertainment systems like seatback display screens with removable tablets or mechanisms that can be used with existing personal tablets. Display mounting solutions, such as swing-out positioning arms with integrated constant torque, allow the passenger to position the screen according to height and lighting preferences and have it stay in place while the car is in motion. These display arms can be integrated directly into vehicle surfaces to improve the viewing experience and maximize end user operation and can also be folded in when not in use, allowing designers to optimize space in the cabin.

• Safety and component “strength” will be evaluated differently. Crash testing is already critical to the interior design process, but even with autonomous vehicles, there are still going to be accidents. Autonomous car interiors will still have to meet Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard (FMVSS) requirements, which will evolve to meet the unique challenges of self-driving vehicles.

In response, standards for mechanisms and materials — the inertial loading, shear strength, and tensile strength requirements — will need careful consideration. Additionally, the location of safety devices will need to be rethought. For example, airbags are now deployed from the glove box panel to keep driver and passenger from crushing their knees during accidental deceleration. The industry responded by developing strong, two-point latching mechanisms to keep the glove box door closed during impact.

In an autonomous environment with more passenger space and application points, designers will need to apply the same level of technology to other access panels to prevent the risk of false latching and keep passengers safe during operation.

Automotive designers can stay ahead of autonomous design trends by prioritizing component decisions early in the design concept stage. Substantial re-engineering will be required to investigate new materials and design elements, which will in turn, extend design time. Additionally, more testing will be required to validate compliance with safety regulations.

Designers can meet the challenges of designing user spaces in self-driving cars by working with suppliers today to ensure the success of autonomous vehicles tomorrow.

Author Steve Potter is General Manager, Transportation, at Southco Inc.

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