What are AI smart cockpits in cars?

AI smart cockpit systems in cars have become the talk of the town. An AI smart cockpit system in a car predominantly uses Artificial Intelligence to improve the user experience and offers occupants a wide array of personalised services. It can integrate navigation, driver monitoring, voice assistance infotainment, e-commerce, payment, etc. Moreover, an AI-powered cockpit is also capable of learning from the user behaviour and preferences and thereby provides customised solutions and recommendations. AI has been constantly pushing the possibilities of car cockpit systems.

STLA SmartCockpit of Stellantis

Recently, Stellantis, one of the leading automakers in the world, has been developing their STLA SmartCockpit. This cockpit, the company says, will seamlessly integrate with the digital lives of vehicle occupants and transform vehicles into personalised living spaces. Stellantis’ brands include the likes of Alfa Romeo, Citroen, Fiat, Jeep, Dodge and Maserati.

The global chief software officer of Stellantis, Yves Bonnefont, said that the next generation interface of smart cockpits will enable users a more natural way of interacting with their cars as per the inputs from touch and voice to glance and gesture. Moreover, it will also use AI-powered applications to deliver a wide array of characteristics and services like navigation, voice assistance, e-commerce marketplace and payment services. We can say that the software will dominate your car soon. He stated, “It’s a brand-new generation cockpit. It’s a multi-modal cockpit – as you would expect. You get all the connected functions you can think of. Our Bengaluru centre is the leading centre globally (for this project). There are contributions from other regions, but everything is managed here out of India.”

Furthermore, Bonnefont mentioned that the possibilities and potential use cases for AI in future cockpits are extensive, specifically in the case of recommendations. “We believe our customers would greatly benefit from recommendation engines in the cockpit, possibly some dynamic HMI (human-machine interface) that is going to present you with what you need when you need it. So, what media would you like to listen to in a given circumstance? What phone calls are you most likely to make in the morning or evening?” he added.

Benefits of leveraging computer vision

Leveraging computer vision, Bonnefont said, Stellantis’s smart cockpit can explore various contexts and provide recommendations according to what it ‘sees’. “Are you alone in the car? Are you sitting with a bunch of friends? With computer vision, we can even monitor the interior of the vehicle, perceive your mood, your emotions, and react accordingly”, he added.

According to Bonnefont, you can see some science fiction-inspired use cases once augmented reality is incorporated. “With augmented reality, you can be better connected with the outside world of the car, and the cockpit will be able to give you specific information on something you’re looking at. For example, if, as a car occupant, you are looking at something, the cockpit will understand what you’re looking at, relate that to the outside world, and give you some information on what, say, the monument you are passing is, or whether you should take a particular exit if you want to go to that monument.”

He further stated that the company’s strategy is to update the smart cockpit over time to make sure customers always have cutting-edge features. “This is a completely different way of managing the technology from the industry’s history. And we have embarked on that journey in a very active manner.”

However, he also pointed out that reshaping and building a next-generation cockpit like this demands a vast number of talented engineers and sophisticated hardware as well. “For example, we embed in the hardware some hardware accelerator for neural networks computing so that we can deploy AI models to the cockpit on an ongoing basis during the lifecycle. And then it takes a lot of software skills and capabilities to build this, which we are very excited to find here in India because the level of skills is tremendous.”

As per reports, Stellantis is expected to launch its next-generation cockpits in their vehicles shortly. 

• Photo by Brock Wegner on Unsplash