Could your seat tell you when to drive?

Solving the problems faced by driverless cars requires rethinking how vehicles work, and research from Bani Anvari, research leader of the Intelligent Mobility Group at University College London, reveals even seating may have to be reconsidered.

Plenty of driverless designs suggest seats that swivel, so drivers can turn around to speak to passengers after they let the machine take the wheel. That’s not what Anvari is considering. Instead, she’s examining the use of haptic feedback to let the car communicate to the human sitting in the driver’s seat that it’s time to retake the wheel, rather than a flashing light or beeping sound.

“Normally in autonomous cars, we see audio and video feedback for different levels of autonomy and the handover task between these levels of autonomy,” Anvari explained. “What we’ve been working on is also introducing haptic or mechanical feedback in combination with visual and audio feedback, making use of the seat to provide this feedback.”

Haptic feedback is often associated with game console controllers that vibrate, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that the wheel or seat will rumble when the car needs the driver to take control back.

Instead, the system that Anvari is working on is about comfort.

“We integrate robotic structures inside the seat… which become stiff and close to your body when you’re in control or need to take back control,” she said. “When you don’t need to do anything, these elements become soft and nice, like a sofa, to indicate that you can relax and give control to the car.”

The aim is to reduce reaction time, so the driver takes the wheel back as quickly as possible. But you also need to avoid overloading the driver with information. “Making use of the sense of touch, it’s something that people are familiar with,” Anvari said. “There’s no requirement for training… and we know from research that haptic feedback is very efficient in conveying complex messages.”

The robotic seat won’t remove the need for other alert systems, but work alongside them to ensure the person in the driver’s seat knows what they need to do when the car’s system hands back control. And if robotic seats that clench your bottom when it’s time to grab the wheel don’t showcase exactly how much automation could change how we drive, we’re not sure what could.