A HIGH-TECH SOLUTION FOR DISTRACTED DRIVING
Incredibly easy sonar-based system restricts a driver’s phone features using car’s speakers
Who knew that ridding ourselves of distracted driving could be so easy and inexpensive? Oh, we all know that driving while texting is the scourge of modern mobility, that distracted driving now kills more people than drunk driving, and that almost half of all teenagers think it’s their God-given right to Facebook while driving.
But, as much as everyone knows that driving while distracted is a problem, self-regulation — we drivers voluntarily putting down our cellphones — has proved futile. Public awareness campaigns, so effective in convincing teenagers not to drink and drive, have proven all but useless. Even the fear of thousand-dollar fines (the current maximum for a distracted-while-driving infraction in Ontario) has proven to be no deterrent. The only solution, authorities have concluded, is to physically prevent drivers from using their phones. The problem is that no one could think of a way — at least a quick, easy and cheap way — that would allow carmakers to prevent drivers from using their cellphones while allowing passengers to enjoy the marvel of modern infotainment.
Enter Morwan Hannon, whose ingenious Hands-free Assistant, Location Optimized (HALO) is the very model of engineering simplicity.
How simple is HALO? Hannon is not an engineer. Although he does indeed hold a few patents, his dayto-day job is actually running a small trucking firm. In fact, HALO exists mainly because he was looking for a way to prevent his drivers from driving while distracted. The man he tasked to come up with the solution, Peter Qu — an engineer with multiple degrees — took but three days to come up with the theory that would become the core of Motion Intelligence, the company now on the brink of this industry-changing safety breakthrough.
Hannon’s solution is so elegant that it requires no new hardware. No space-age technologies are needed inside the car, no NASA satellites are required to track cellphones from the skies, and no peripherals need be added to your smartphone. Motion Intelligence’s formula is, in fact, completely software based. Better yet, the technology Hannon and Qu came up with to solve their high-tech conundrum is old school, more than 75 years old and uses nothing more than the speakers in your car’s sound system and the microphone already built into every modern smartphone.
It’s called acoustic location. You might know it better as sonar. Essentially what happens is that speakers inside the car “ping” inaudible sound pulses directed at all the cellphones in the car. The mobile phones then record these ultrasonic sounds using their built-in microphones. If the sound pulses are recorded by a phone at precisely the same time, HALO knows that the cell in question is exactly halfway between the two speakers. If, on the other hand, the sound from speaker A arrives to a cellphone a millisecond earlier than speaker B — and, yes, our cellphones are that accurate — then HALO knows it is closer to speaker A. In fact, using the speed of sound, Motion Intelligence claims it can pinpoint the location of a smartphone inside a car’s cabin as precisely as plus or minus five centimetres. And that’s just by using a basic two-speaker system with woofers in the driver and passenger doors. Throw in the triangulation offered if there’s a third speaker in the rear and the system can narrow a smartphone’s position to whether your cellphone is in your front or rear pocket.
Once it’s determined that said smartphone is in the vicinity of the driver’s seat, it is a simple software manipulation to disable the most distracting of cellphone interactions. Texting and emails are high on the list. Other less involved activities — answering the phone, for instance — remain enabled.
Needless to say, safety advocates such as the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration should welcome such a simple method of reducing distraction while driving. Indeed, many have posited that the NHTSA’s ringing endorsement of autonomous driving technology is really a reaction to the increasing problem of in-car distractions. Even auto insurance companies would welcome such a technology; it doesn’t take soothsayer-like prescience to imagine insurers offering discounts to drivers using Motion Intelligence’s override.
So, how soon can this attention-focusing saviour be in the marketplace? Well, after spending the past two years nailing down the more than 50 patents that make HALO possible, Motion Intelligence’s chief executive, Kevin Packingham, has turned his focus to manufacturing. The projected timeline sees production beginning in less than six months.
The one fly in the ointment is that, at least initially, Motion Intelligence’s system will only be available as an aftermarket add-on. Packingham says the company will focus its marketing on fleets, such as trucking and taxi companies, and parents concerned about their dependents’ driving habits. This is because the one limitation in Motion Intelligence’s strategy is that it is the phone that must shut itself down, once its internal software recognizes its owner is behind the wheel. The chances a driver will voluntarily download an app that will eventually cut off their connectivity lifeline is highly unlikely. Which is why Packingham is targeting clients — again, fleet owners and parents — who can enforce the use of Motion Intelligence’s override function.
Naturally, the ideal solution would be if HALO were embedded into iOS and Android operating systems. Packingham says such discussions are ongoing, as are consultations with OEM automakers to find out how best to integrate Motion Intelligence’s software with their existing infotainment hardware.
The allure for the automaker is obvious. HALO will even allow automakers to “enable more infotainment services” says Packingham. In Motion Intelligence parlance, that’s the difference between HALO Go (any smart devices in the driver’s zone that are disabled) and HALO Pass (devices identified as belonging to passengers that are enabled for full infotainment services and over-the-air communication).
With the enormity of the problem and the amount of coverage distracted driving is receiving — our own Postmedia network devoted a weeklong series to the havoc texting wreaks — one can’t imagine integration of such software will take very long. In the meantime, Motion Intelligence’s solution remains a model of simplicity defeating complication.
For what it’s worth, your humble Motor Mouth thinks this is the most elegant engineering solution Silicon Valley has come up with in quite some time.