Me310a 2003-2004
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ME310 2003-2004 Optimum Human Machine Interface for the IT Generation all great design firms started in someone’s garage Department of Mechanical Engineering School of Engineering, Stanford University, Stanford CA 94305 Tori L. Bailey David P. Fries Philipp L. Skogstad ME 310 – YTPD Garage June 7, 2004 Toyota Info Technology Center U.S.A. Interface for IT Generation Page 2 of 254 ME 310 – YTPD Garage June 7, 2004 Toyota Info Technology Center U.S.A. Interface for IT Generation 1 Front Matter 1.1 Executive Summary Driving the vehicle has been the primary task of the driver since the automobile was invented over 100 years ago. Yet as technology increasingly invades the car, the driver is required to divert attention to managing secondary (non-driving) tasks created by these technologies. The goal of the Toyota project is to investigate the types of secondary tasks that might be available to the IT Generation in future vehicles, and to design an interface that will allow the driver to accomplish these secondary tasks safely. The design team, a collaboration between Stanford University and the Tokyo Metropolitan Institute of Technology (TMIT), has explored many ideas for future vehicle functions and determined that most involve the idea of “connectedness.” The teams are focusing on improving this in-car “connectedness” by designing an interface system that allows drivers to create text while driving safely. Fig. 1: The Optimum Human Machine Interface for text entry while driving. The system consists of four components: a text input device, a logic core (software), an output device, and a test vehicle for collecting user data. The input system that has been designed and tested is illustrated in Fig. 1 above. Page 3 of 254 ME 310 – YTPD Garage June 7, 2004 Toyota Info Technology Center U.S.A. Interface for IT Generation Even though voice recognition is one obvious design approach for an input system, Toyota has specifically requested the design team to explore alternate approaches. The design requirements are listed in detail in section 3. Most importantly, the ergonomic interface must enable the driver to steer safely while entering data. A design featuring a single thumb keypad has been developed and integrated into a test vehicle as described in section 4. The keypad is asymmetrically mounted in the hub of the steering wheel. The keypad consists of 12 multi-directional switches, and follows the conventional alphanumeric layout of a cellular phone. The keys are arranged along an arc, following the natural sweeping motion of the thumb. The spacing and location of the keypad accommodates users with a wide range of hand sizes. The keypad operates in two text entry modes: beginner and advanced. The beginner mode emulates the multi-tap method of text entry where the user cycles through 3-5 characters per numeric key. Multi-tap is the standard entry protocol for cellular phones and heavily depends on visual feedback from the display. Users typically have to glance at the display with each attempt to enter a character to confirm they stopped at the correct position in the cycle. The advanced mode, multi-direction, enables single keystroke per character entry, where the compass points (left/right/up/down) of each switch correspond to a single letter, and select (in) corresponds to a number or function. Multi-direction enables drivers to touch type without the need for continuous visual confirmation, diverting less attention from the main task of driving. The wheel spoke is designed to align the operator’s hand to the input device, decreasing the effort needed to acquire and reacquire the keys. The keypad’s position in the hub of the wheel functions as a built-in safety mechanism. During active steering situations, the rapid wheel movements make it impossible to track the keys to enter error free text, naturally limiting text entry, and thus driver distraction during intense driving situations. A major goal of the project was to test the system with a wide range of users to establish the operation safety boundaries of the system; the conditions where it might be safe as well as unsafe to enter text. Liability questions prevented extensive road testing, however, a small set of data was collected from the designers and additional users in a static vehicle test system. The change in response time measured with LED clusters Page 4 of 254 ME 310 – YTPD Garage June 7, 2004 Toyota Info Technology Center U.S.A. Interface for IT Generation mounted throughout the car provided a basis for the impact of the text input device on potential driving performance. The text input system allows for text input speeds of 5 words per minute (WPM) without training, increasing to 10 WPM after 3 hours of training. Operating the text input device increases the response time of the driver as compared to driving without texting. The overall increase in total response time was 0.6 to 3.1 seconds for beginner and advanced mode, respectively. Testing has shown that the multi-direction method results in a larger increase in response time, mostly due to the uniqueness of the interface. These response times can be compared to an increase of 0.6 seconds when the driver changes radio stations while driving. All interactions are distractions in the car environment; the text entry interface does not change that axiom. However, the testing completed to date, although limited, has shown that the text entry device is comparable to existing in-vehicle interfaces such as the radio, using increase in response time as the metric for safety. 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Interface for IT Generation 1.2 Table of Contents 1 Front Matter..................................................................................................................3 1.1 Executive Summary ....................................................................................................... 3 1.2 Table of Contents........................................................................................................... 6 1.3 List of Figures .............................................................................................................. 10 1.4 List of Tables. .............................................................................................................. 12 1.5 Glossary ....................................................................................................................... 13 2 Context ....................................................................................................................... 19 2.1 Need Statement ............................................................................................................ 19 2.2 Problem Statement ....................................................................................................... 21 2.3 Design Team ................................................................................................................ 22 2.3.1 Student Design Team Members............................................................................................ 22 2.3.2 Coaches................................................................................................................................. 26 2.3.3 Teaching Teams.................................................................................................................... 26 2.3.4 Toyota Corporate Liaisons ................................................................................................... 27 2.4 Team Circumstances.................................................................................................... 27 3 Design Requirements ................................................................................................. 29 3.1 Introduction.................................................................................................................. 29 3.2 Functional Requirements ............................................................................................. 30 3.2.1 Functional Requirement Verification Methodology............................................................. 32 3.2.2 Constraints............................................................................................................................ 33 3.2.3 Opportunities ........................................................................................................................ 33 3.3 Physical Requirements................................................................................................. 34 3.3.1 Physical Constraints ............................................................................................................. 35 3.3.2 Opportunities ........................................................................................................................ 35 3.4 Assumptions................................................................................................................. 35 4 Design Development.................................................................................................. 37 4.1 Overview...................................................................................................................... 37 4.2 Input Interface.............................................................................................................. 38 4.2.1 Current Input Interfaces........................................................................................................39 4.2.2 Optimum Input Interface