Modern Developments of Man-Machine Communications Demonstrated With a Touch Panel

With increasing complexity of modern vehicles the number of control buttons grows, too, because every electric element like power windows, power seats, or a sun roof, requires a separate switch. By use of a touch panel which is similar to a graphics tablet you may now combine many switches and buttons within a single element.

The combination of a touch panel with synthetic speech output may facilitate the handling: the speech output reflects the inputted commands permitting the driver to concentrate on the street ahead.

For the near future it is not planned to introduce a touch panel into the series production; however, in the Research Department of Daimler-Benz, different man-machine interfaces are investigated and weighed up.