Predictive touchscreens finding increasing footprint in cars: Everything to know

Touchscreen infotainment systems have changed the in-car experiences. Now, after revolutionizing the in-cabin experience for car drivers and passengers, touchscreen infotainment systems are witnessing further improvement. One of them is the predictive touchscreen, which allows the user to access different functions without touching the screen. Predictive touchscreens can reduce the physical touch-based interaction between the driver and the display panel by up to 50 per cent.

Here are all you need to know about predictive touchscreens.

What is a predictive touchscreen?

Predictive touchscreens come as one form of no-touch touchscreens. These touchscreen infotainment systems are powered by artificial intelligence and come equipped with a range of sensors. Aided by AI and sensors, these touchscreen infotainment systems can predict the user's intended target to touch.

Also, they show various interactive displays or control panels that are present on the dashboard. Such infotainment systems often come with voice assistants, which allows the user to make the car's system perform various functions through voice commands.

How does predictive touchscreen work?

The predictive touchscreen comes equipped with a Time of Flight (ToF) camera, which scans the fingers of the user as he or she moves to touch the screen. The ToF camera uses infrared light to detect movements in a 3D setup. The emitted light hits the user's hand and bounces back to the sensor of the infotainment system after detecting the hand's positioning. The artificial intelligence-powered system learns these movements and predicts the function or feature to the user.

Advantages of predictive touchscreen

A predictive touchscreen comes with a host of advantages for the user. One of them is lesser distractions for the driver. As the driver does not require to touch the screen, the system does the work for the driver. It also reduces the workload, effort and duration of completing on-screen tasks for the user. Lesser distraction means, the driver can focus more on the road ahead, which reduces the risk of mishaps.