Vehicle Interface Control for Exterior Multilingual Communication
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Solution Overview
Problem
Communication between a vehicle occupant and individuals outside the vehicle is often hindered by background noise, hearing impairments, or language barriers, necessitating a technological solution to facilitate effective interaction.
Innovation Solution
A vehicle system equipped with an exterior display screen, user interface, and computer that detects prespecified indicia on target vehicles and personnel, allowing for tailored communication, including transcription of speech and output of messages and documents, to address communication impairments and language differences.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If traditional communication methods are used between vehicle occupants and external individuals, then the communication may occur without additional system complexity, but the communication effectiveness deteriorates due to background noise, hearing impairments, and language barriers
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces an intermediary communication system that includes exterior display screens, microphones, speakers, and translation devices. These intermediaries facilitate communication between the vehicle occupant and external individuals by converting speech to visual text displays, providing real-time translation, and amplifying audio signals, thereby overcoming background noise, hearing impairments, and language barriers without requiring direct human-to-human communication
Solution Approach 2:
The patent replaces traditional mechanical acoustic communication (speaking and listening directly) with electronic and optical systems. Speech is captured by microphones, processed through translation algorithms, and displayed as text on exterior screens. This substitution of mechanical acoustic fields with electronic signal processing and visual display systems eliminates the limitations of traditional communication methods
2Reliability
If an exterior display screen and communication system are added to the vehicle, then communication effectiveness improves through visual displays and speech transcription, but the device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The communication system is designed with multi-functionality to justify its complexity. The exterior display screens serve multiple purposes: displaying speech transcription, showing translated messages, presenting visual warnings, and providing navigation information. The microphone and speaker system handles both audio capture and playback while integrating with the vehicle's existing audio architecture. This universal application of the system across multiple communication scenarios amortizes the complexity burden across diverse use cases
3Adaptability or versatility
If real-time speech transcription and translation are provided to address language barriers, then communication accessibility improves for individuals with hearing impairments or language differences, but the processing requirements and system complexity increase
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary actions by pre-loading translation dictionaries and language models into the vehicle's processing unit. Common phrases and frequently used translations are cached in advance. When communication is initiated, the system retrieves pre-prepared translation templates and fills in specific details, rather than performing complete real-time translation from scratch. This preliminary preparation reduces the real-time processing burden while maintaining translation quality
Solution Approach 2:
The communication system incorporates self-service capabilities through automated speech recognition and machine translation algorithms that operate autonomously without requiring manual intervention. The system automatically detects speech, transcribes it to text, translates the text to the target language, and displays the result on the exterior screen. This automation eliminates the need for human operators to manually transcribe or translate communications, reducing operational complexity while maintaining high accessibility
Data Source
AI summary
A system includes a display screen positioned to display on an exterior of a host vehicle, a user interface of the host vehicle, and a computer communicatively coupled to the display screen and the user interface. The computer is programmed to, in response to detecting a target vehicle having prespecified indicia, instruct the user interface to output an instruction to an occupant of the host vehicle, and in response to detecting personnel from the target vehicle, instruct the display screen to output a message to the personnel.