Toyota pulled the wraps off the new, futuristic
Concept-i at the CES in Las Vegas, showcasing the company’s view for vehicles
of the future. The Concept-i was designed at Toyota’s CALTY Design Research in
California and uses the user experience technology from the Toyota Innovation
Hub in San Francisco.
The whole idea behind the concept was to offer an
immersive and energetic user experience, mainly thanks to the Concept-i’s
integrated artificial intelligence system which can anticipate people’s needs,
improve their daily lives or, as Toyota puts it, “inspire their imaginations”.
The company claims that the heart of the Concept-i
is a powerful AI system that learns with the driver and that is capable of
building a “meaningful and human” relationship with him.
Instead of just offering driving patterns and
schedules, the system can leverage multiple technologies to measure emotion and
map it against where and when the driver travels around the world. This combo
is what Toyota believes it’s giving the Concept-i its ability to use mobility
towards improving the quality of life of the driver.
The car itself is also giving the option to its
driver for manual or fully automated driving, with the AI system leveraging
various advanced automated features which enhance the driving safety and
combines them with visual and haptic stimuli to better communicate with the
driver and monitor his or hers responsiveness.
This way the Toyota Concept-i is seamlessly
monitoring both the driver’s attention and the road conditions, ready to
increase the automated driving support if necessary.
The whole design approach of Toyota’s new concept
was done from the inside out, with the design team starting from the user
interface that is basically the base for the onboard AI agent, nicknamed “Yui”.
“Yui” has the ability to use light, sound and even
touch the occupants in order to communicate critical information. In fact the
dashboard avoids screens on the centre console, using instead colored lights in
the foot wells to show whether the car is in autonomous or manual driving mode,
projector in the rear deck to warn about blind spots and an advanced head-up
display to help keep the driver’s eyes on the road.
