SLS RESEARCH

Vehicle-based Information Access

As the vehicle environment becomes enabled with navigation, media, and other information sources, the conventional human-vehicle interface is seriously challenged. Spoken interaction offers a viable option for people to manage these ever expanding capabilities by reducing their cognitive load - especially in hands-busy, eyes-busy situations.

We are currently exploring an urban navigation scenario where users are asking information about businesses and landmarks within a city. Working with engineers from BMW North America, we have adapted our web-based infrastructure to interact in the vehicle environment so that we can leverage on-board microphones, displays and controls. The video below shows a prototype of the system. We have been recently collaborating with researchers in the MIT Age Lab to perform users studies with these more natural speech interfaces.

Further Reading

A. Gruenstein, J. Orszulak, S. Liu, S. Roberts, J. Zabel, B. Reimer, B. Mehler, S. Seneff, J. Glass, J. Coughlin, "City Browser: Developing a Conversational Automotive HMI," Proc. CHI, 4291-4296, Boston, April 2009. (PDF)