Thermal Feedback for Simulated Lane Change Scenarios

Abstract

Most research into haptic feedback for in-car applications has used vibrotactile feedback. In this article, two simulator studies investigate novel thermal feedback during driving for a lane change task. The distraction and time differences of audio and thermal feedback were investigated in the first, with results showing that thermal feedback does not increase lane deviation, but the time to completed lane change is 1.82s longer in the thermal than the audio condition. The second experiment explored the difference in variable changes of the thermal stimuli on the recognition rate and false positive recognition at the return to the neutral temperature. Variable alterations can have different effects on these tasks and are not mirrored for the directions of temperature change. This suggests that the design of thermal stimuli is highly dependent on what result should be maximized: recognition rate or minimal additional changes at the return to the neutral temperature.

TempSeat: Investigating the Suitability of a Heated Car Seat for Feedback Purposes

“…Future entertainment use of mixed reality within the car [14] could benefit from the increase of immersion enabled by thermal feedback [8,16]. Research on the use of thermal feedback within the car has been focused on manual driving, mostly by presenting thermal cues on Peltier devices attached to the steering wheel for directional [4,5,7] and informational cues [3,6]. To enable the effective use of thermal feedback during automated driving, where the user's hands may not be on the wheel, other locations and devices need to be tested.…”