Jaguar Land Rover's 'Hot' New Idea: Sensory Steering Wheels

With automakers perpetually promoting daft new technologies as a way to appease investors, it’s been a while since we’ve seen a new idea that made us take pause and wonder why nobody else had come up with it first. Fortunately, Jaguar Land Rover has done us a solid, with research help from Glasgow University, and delivered a “sensory steering wheel” aimed at giving drivers silent feedback through temperature variances.

The applications of the device are yet to be settled upon but JLR has suggested that the wheel could be used to notify the driver of less-pressing issues that don’t warrant an audible announcement or even offer silent turn-by-turn navigation.

For navigation, JLR said the vehicle could indicate the direction to turn by rapidly warming or cooling one side of the wheel by a difference of up to 6o degrees Celsius. The manufacturer said this feature would be especially useful in low-visibility situations where speed is not a factor and a driver can’t risk taking their eyes off the road to check a map. As someone who almost never turns on audible directions, this author also believes the system could provide useful preemptive turning alerts that would lessen the need to check the map on a regular basis during normal driving as well.

Distracted driving is a real and seemingly growing issue but JLR feels that something like this steering wheel could be a useful tool in mitigating it. It claimed that 10 percent of all fatal crashes in the U.S. were the result of unfocused motorists and suggested that a heated wheel could be used to convey pertinent information in a less-jarring manner. While it suggested specific notifications, such as low-fuel announcements, datebook reminders, and alerting drivers to nearby points of interest, there really is no limit to how it could be used.

“Safety is a number one priority for Jaguar Land Rover and we are committed to continuously improving our vehicles with the latest technological developments as well as preparing the business for a self-driving future,” JLR Electrical Research Senior Manager Alexandros Mouzakitis said in a statement. “The ‘sensory steering wheel’ is all part of this vision, with thermal cues able to reduce the amount of time drivers have to take their eyes off the road … Research has shown people readily understand the heating and cooling dynamics to denote directions and the subtlety of temperature change can be perfect for certain feedback that doesn’t require a more intrusive audio or vibration-based cue.”

While this appears to be an evolution of Jaguar Land Rover’s earlier work with the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, most of which previously dealt with haptic feedback, the sensory steering wheel would likely work in tandem with existing systems. JLR also said the technology could be applied to the gear-shift paddles to indicate when the handover from the driver to autonomous control in future self-driving vehicles has completed.

Honestly, the only real conundrum is figuring out how effective the feature would be during those cold winter months where you’ve already got the wheel set to maximum warmth. But the system is supposed to be able to tailor to individual needs, meaning it’d be up to you to suss that out. Regardless, we’re curious to see what this would be like in a production vehicle and hope Jaguar Land Rover pulls the trigger on this one.

A steering wheel developed by Jaguar Land Rover could help keep drivers’ eyes on the road – by using heat to tell drivers when to turn left or right. pic.twitter.com/iVbhgUHG6J

— Jaguar Land Rover (@JLR_News) May 29, 2019

[Image: Jaguar Land Rover]