Jacob Aron, technology reporter
Ever been distracted and missed your satnav's instructions? It's all very well having a clever box to tell you when to turn, but it's very easy to watch a junction pass by if the radio is blasting or the kids are screaming in the back. Now, a team of engineers is offering a solution: the vibrating steering wheel.
Cagatay Basdogan and colleagues at Koç University in Istanbul, Turkey, say that equipping a steering wheel with a pair of vibrating motors similar to those found in mobile phones makes it easier for drivers to navigate. Their system augments existing GPS devices by vibrating on the left or right side of the wheel when you need to make a turn, and vibrating on both sides when approaching a roundabout.
The researchers tested the idea with a driving simulator, asking 12 volunteers to navigate a virtual city while hearing loud noises or distracted by a passenger attempting to strike up a conversation. On average the participants made three-and-a-half navigation errors when using a non-vibrating steering wheel, but this dropped to just one error when the motors were switched on.
Basdogan and his team have embedded the motors into a leather cover that can be placed over the steering wheel of any car, but future cars could also have motors built into the wheel. He plans to test their system in a real car soon, and his team is also experimenting with adding extra motors to convey even more navigational information. They will present the system at the World Haptics conference in Istanbul later this month.
Ever been distracted and missed your satnav's instructions? It's all very well having a clever box to tell you when to turn, but it's very easy to watch a junction pass by if the radio is blasting or the kids are screaming in the back. Now, a team of engineers is offering a solution: the vibrating steering wheel.
Cagatay Basdogan and colleagues at Koç University in Istanbul, Turkey, say that equipping a steering wheel with a pair of vibrating motors similar to those found in mobile phones makes it easier for drivers to navigate. Their system augments existing GPS devices by vibrating on the left or right side of the wheel when you need to make a turn, and vibrating on both sides when approaching a roundabout.
The researchers tested the idea with a driving simulator, asking 12 volunteers to navigate a virtual city while hearing loud noises or distracted by a passenger attempting to strike up a conversation. On average the participants made three-and-a-half navigation errors when using a non-vibrating steering wheel, but this dropped to just one error when the motors were switched on.
Basdogan and his team have embedded the motors into a leather cover that can be placed over the steering wheel of any car, but future cars could also have motors built into the wheel. He plans to test their system in a real car soon, and his team is also experimenting with adding extra motors to convey even more navigational information. They will present the system at the World Haptics conference in Istanbul later this month.
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