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Toyota Experimenting With Joystick Control For Cars
alphadogg writes "Today it's the stuff of video games, but Toyota is experimenting with joystick control for a new breed of compact cars and transporters. The world's biggest car maker built the technology into a couple of concept vehicles that were on display Wednesday at the Tokyo Motor Show. The FT-EV II, which got its world premiere at the event, is a compact electric vehicle designed for short trips. The car retains seats for four passengers despite being much more compact than most other cars, and packs drive-by-wire technology so it can be controlled with a joystick. The car's steering, braking and acceleration can be controlled by hand so foot pedals aren't needed, freeing up space to provide more legroom for the driver."
...now where's my flying car?!
Have a hellava day!
The steering usually gives good feedback of the road. Will there be some feedback in the joystick too? It's essential to the driving experience!
Then I can use a rumblepad or even a force-feedback racing wheel.
What happens when there's a power steering failure? I know it's not a common problem, but it is a problem which randomly comes up. At least with a steering wheel the driver can generally muscle the wheels to turn- I can't imagine a joystick acting as an actual lever to turn the wheels, but as more of an electronic device to turn on some motors which would handle this.
Great...because people aren't crappy enough drivers with an interface that they understand and have been using for decades.
This better be implemented, just for the cool factor. Unfortunately, I could see the added joystick capability could end up making it too easy to perform particularly risky maneuvers (IE, aggressive drivers now have the skill of a race car video game), but it could also make driving easier. The only problem I see is parallel parking, which would be worlds different with joystick control. Although from how the article put it, it just sounds like these joysticks are the left and right side of a steering wheel: they react the same regardless of which one you touch.
I always wondered when we'd finally switch from the same ol' method of controlling a car we've been using... well for the most part from the beginning of cars.
I'm sure someone with the time to do it and some minor mechanical and electrical skills could make a modification to a car to function this way. Would be a fun project I think.
Don't Tread on Me
They had some experimental vehicle that used a joystick. Upshot was that the joystick is NOT a good way to control a car due to its small range of movement. Doing subtle manouvering was a right PITA. Sure , technology may improve things but frankly a steering wheel gives perfect feedback for what it does and if something ain't broken...
What, no keyboard + mouse option?
-l
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gimme a control that lets me:
[StartMacro Name = 'RoadRage']
/swerveleft
/blinkheadlights
/accelerate 90
/flipoffotherdriver
[EndMacro]
and then we'll be talking...till then...back to the drawing board.
Trackball cars! Though it won't be fully finished until we have a touchscreen with the patented apple zoom gesture to accelerate
for(b=(a=0)+1;;b+=(a+=b))print(a+"\n"+b+"\n");
finally making it into cars. I hope they look at the evolution of joysticks and realize a thumb-stick is better. The feedback from your body moving is all you need. That is what is missing from driving games.
"The stupid neither forgive nor forget; the naive forgive and forget; the wise forgive but do not forget." -Thomas Szasz
will there be interchangeable control options?
will the controls have reverse controls or plain?
will there be some nifty fire buttons?
spy hunter looks so much more realistic now.
now im waiting for a car that is controlled by a keyboard. that would be awsome
Very non-standard controls... the reason I can jump in basically any car and drive it is because the operations are mostly standardised. Left pedal clutch, middle break, right accelerator, steering wheel is obvious, indicators is the stick on the right. Lights etc trial-and-error mostly. Trucks, buses - well anything that hits the road and has more than two wheels pretty much works like that.
This is so different, will we need special licenses/training for it? How about force-feedback, for example? I know it's experimental but still makes you wonder how about using it on the road.
And safety. For such a super-compact car. Crumple zones don't compact well - maybe I should state that different. They need space to crumple in. Something like that. And that is space OUTSIDE the passenger compartment of course.
In the late 80s, early 90s Saab experimented with a joystick control, a "drive by wire if you will." Stephanie Stahl from 60 minutes did a story on the drive by wire Saab. Ultimately, it proved not to be the game changer everyone thought. The joystick was placed where the gear shifter normally was. One of the problems was the sensitivity and lack of road feedback. It was actually hard to drive and keep steady.
A car with yaw control...
crazy dynamite monkey
There are so many problems with this idea I cant even imgaine...
1) As somebody else mentioned, power steering failure is a big one
2) A car does not move conducive to the way a joystick moves, the throttle/break and steering need to be seperate.
or your just asking for trouble in a hard turn or emergency situation.
3) I guarantee you, steering fatigue will set in if a drivers only means for controlling the vehicle are with one hand.
4) I could go on but I think most of these issues are quite obvious.
I will finally be able to drift around corners since I can't do it in real life, but I am a pretty awesome drifter in games.
The world is how you make it
Now that we've got the joysticks out of the way, we can finally move on to more important matters.
"Before God we are all equally wise - and equally foolish"
Albert Einstein
mercedes did something like that a long time ago ^^
Sounds more likely to be something that Toyota is going to try becuase they can do it, not to sell it or even really bring it to market. They put this out and people talk about Toyota for a while and then like alot of stuff that comes out at car shows, never sees the inside of a showroom. Just my two cents though.
Don't try to be a great man. Just be a man, and let history make its own judgment - Zemfram Cochrane
The steering wheel is in the middle, will the joystick likewisde be in the middle, or off to one side?
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This won't ever see the light of day. For one, its not currently legal in America. Two, it would only result in a much higher rate of impact. (Slam on your brakes next time you drive, see which way your hand moves. Is it forward?! Oh no! you just hit the car going 30 instead of 22). THREE, if its NOT BROKE. Do NOT fix it. Four, there is 0 gain from this. At all. Also, unless we start seeing it on race cars no one will ever take it seriously.
So basically, -1 troll/offtopic is really slashdots way of saying "I hate that you thought of something before me."
No pictures? How can they not show us any pictures of this? And why a joystick? Why not something more like a brainwave scanner? That way, when you're talking on the cellphone, and you get distracted by picturing what the person on the other end is saying, you crash into a wall! That would be so cool!
From watching people drive, one would think many already have a hand on the joystick.
Why, without your clothes, you're naked, Miss Dudley!
Add a decent HUD as well...
A yoke is just plain more stable than a stick. The latter is great for quick input of large control motions, but has more drawbacks than advantages where the objective is smooth and precise results with minimal interference.
For all of the "fighter jock" fantasies, drivers are a lot more like jumbo jet jockeys. That includes race drivers -- or don't you think that someone would have put this to use on the F1 circuit already if it was actually better?
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
You're in a JohnnyCab!
Yeah, that just happened.
I don't see how this can ever catch on. If I have to control the car with my hands, how exactly am I supposed to text while driving and not paying attention to the road?
Am I lying when I tell you that im telling the truth? Or am I telling the truth when I say that Im lying?
This may be particularly useful for disabled people with a limited range of motion. There are already cars without pedals for the wheelchair-bound.
This is an exceptionally bad idea. Even with extensive training, in an emergency, you do not think about how to react, and decades of "muscle memory" kicks in. There will be many, many instances of someone in a crisis situation trying in vain to stop their vehicle by attempting to stomp on a non-existant brake pedal.
If you change the QWERTY keyboard, for example, all you have are some frustrated touch-typists. Change this interface and you're going to have scores of dead bodies followed by inevitable lawsuits. A steering wheel and pedals may not be the best interface, but it's too late to change unless you have both systems in place for decades until a new generation of drivers are trained to use only the joystick mechanism.
The contest for ages has been to rescue liberty from the grasp of executive power. -- Daniel Webster
Mercedes have had working prototypes of steering-wheel-less cars for a heck of a long time now, but they can't bring them to market because European safety laws require a physical connection between steering wheel and steered wheels. For obvious reasons - if your fancy fly-by-wire joystick suddenly stops working, you are in deep doo-doo.
All new cars with come with WASD navigation.
the major advances in civilization are processes which all but wreck the societies in which they occur - A.N. White
They have had joystick controls in heavy equipment for a while now, and also boats (http://www.volvo.com/volvopenta/uk/en-gb/marine_leisure_engines/engines/c_volvo_penta_ips/joystick/joystick.htm). So... why not try it in cars too?
this is just a steer by wire system with a joy stick as the input dev.
I was on a design project in college. we built a steer by wire system for GM. although they were just using it as a hiring pool.
The advantages:
-no steering column. ie safer,lighter, no more hydraulics
-you can mess with the controls to change the feel of the steering, responsive, auto steer, ect.
-you can standardize steering units, just drop it in any car
The Disadvantages:
-no hard fail safe. although simple redundancy and smart design can make the fail probability very small.
-poor software/controls error handling can now kill(i smell a new micheal bay movie!)
in hindsight the project wasnt as interesting as the possibilities.
At least with a steering wheel you have to make 2 or 3 full revolutions to get the wheels at a full turn angle, with a joystick it would just be a flick of your wrist. Can you say flip over?
Power Steering: Its drive by wire, an electric car... This isnt your dad oldsmobile with an adapter kit.. we don't know that its hydraulic power steering, it could be all elctronic...
Fatigue: I don't get tired after running a skid-steer or backhoe all day, they are controlled by joysticks.. and are more complex than car controlls
Feedback: Boohoo, its drive by wire, let the computer handle its own feedback... this could eliminate bumpsteer, which is more dangerous if the driver tries to compensate for it.
Learning Curve: Its a prototype, and isnt on the road yet, the aim of the project is to make the car easier to drive, not harder.. let the computer decide how fast to take the corners, how fast to accelerate, and when to coast/brake... thats the idea behind innovation, TO INNOVATE, not to stay the same, but add a blutooth iPod connector with a clock built in
So, Toyota, you're planning on building a car that no one knows how to drive? Let us know how that works out for you.
Joystick steering has been tried, and it sucks.
General Motors tried it with Firebird III in 1958. That car also featured automatic lane-holding, using a wire in the pavement. The vehicle was very hard to control, but it looked really cool.
When we did our DARPA Grand Challenge vehicle, at one point we were controlling it remotely over a WiFi link for test purposes. We tried a joystick, but it was too easy to overcontrol. We got a Logitech racing game steering wheel (a USB peripheral) and pedals, interfaced those, and the thing was easily driveable remotely. That was without force feedback on the wheel, incidentally. (That wheel has "force feedback", but it's set up to take an audio track for vibration, not a desired position, so the HID interface doesn't properly support positional feedback.)
... why would we switch from the same ol' method we've used since the beginning of cars. I'm not one to stick to something just because "we've always done it that way", but neither am I in favor of changing things for the sake of change. This would be a major change to the human-car interface, and is accordingly going to result in significant monetary and opportunity costs (people will need to be retrained, which costs time and money). I'm far from convinced that the benefits of this will be worth it.
An interesting thing, at least to me, here is how the public will accept or reject their changed around user interface. Given that there is a more or less fair and competitive market for cars it is possible and likely that people will reject this change by not buying this kind of vehicle.
If this were a Microsoft software product everybody would be using it regardless if they like it or not. *cough*Office ribbon*cough*
I remember seeing this as a kid in one of the "cars of the future" at Epcot Center. Seemed like a gamer's dream-come-true at the time. Was so disappointed when I was old enough to drive and it still wasn't available in any cars.
Cars at the beginning didn't have steering wheels. They had...a sort of lever; basically vertical steering wheel with very limited movement range, something more similar to joysticks than to the proper steering wheel.
One that hath name thou can not otter
That I would love ;p
Benefits of both steering wheel (precision, hard to make accidental movements) and joysticks (quickly moving between extremes), but without their flaws!
( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NeGcon )
One that hath name thou can not otter
Note that you can control steering, braking and acceleration by hand on a car with a steering wheel -- I've been in a car that (through aftermarket options) did that (braking and acceleration by way of pedals.) Since my friend, whose car it was, had lost most of both legs, it was something of an essential feature for her.
I suspect that layout would be more familar and convenient to drivers than a joystick, if the main goal is to provide legroom by removing footpedals from the equation.
How am I suppose to hold my cell phone, cigarette and drink my coffee?
It is unbelievable the arguments against this. Fighter aircraft have been controlled by joysticks for years. The argument concerning power steering failure is plain BS. I'm now 56 and I have experienced power steering failure once in my life and the car let me know it was coming well ahead of the actual failure. MTBF is very high and not an issue.
This is way overdue.
Motor control, yours, not the car.
Not everyone can be a surgeon, not because of lack of funds, but lack of fine motor control. The size of the joystick makes a huge difference. How many of us were clumsy as F**k when we were growing up? Ever get an adrenaline rush? Remember the shakes that go with it? A near accident would do that for a person, and holding the (nice secure) steering wheel with both hands as you calm down is common. Imagine those shakes affecting your car. My Father-in-law gets tremors he can't control, what would happen to his driving? What if your blood sugar drops and you get shaky or lose your fine motor control? Too much caffeine or nicotine...
Does the joystick support the weight of the arm that is controlling it? Most people cannot hold their arms out for very long, muscle fatigue sets in. I think the idea sounds good, but most people could not handle joysticks at all much less switch to them from regular controls.
How amazed would you be to suddenly find that you just forgot what I wrote and you needed to reread my post.... again.
Driving with two hands offers vastly better accuracy than driving by using one hand only. Even with wheels, when precision is required, most drivers use both hands.
Using a joystick with one hand will be a recipe for disaster.
http://www.motortrend.com/auto_shows/tokyo/2009/112_0910_toyota_ft_ev_ii_concept/index.html
The neat thing to me is that if the stick comes up between the seats (rather than between the legs), you could drive from either seat. This would be handy on long trips where you don't want to stop simply to change drivers, or when the current driver suffers a sudden medical problem.
If you must moderate, please moderate as irrelevent, not something bad, because I'm sure someone will find this interest
This concept vehicle addresses one of the core problems - cost. A typical vehicle conversion can run well upwards of $20k (in addition to vehicle cost) and involves massive hardhacking of the vehicle itself. You're pretty much stuck with the vehicle until it dies since you won't be able to sell it. It is far better to have an OEM route.
In terms of safety and control dynamics, I'm pretty comfortable that these are surmountable issues.
Just a case of getting used to the different device - after all, people use power steering so don't get the same feedback as manually feeling the steering wheel system turning on the road. 100 years ago a paddle / lever control was considered the way to go, not a wheel. Times change.
And horror of horrors, most US Americans drive cars that don't even have manual gearboxes. Frightens the living daylights out of me driving an automatic car!
You're driving along and suddenly the car jumps and changes up or down the gears. Hey car, I want to decide when I want you to change gear, don't want you jumping up and down through the gearbox when you feel like it. I want to slowly lift off the clutch and get the engine to bite when I want it to bite. I guess that's just because my 25 years of driving cars has been in manual cars (UK) and driving an automatic happens once every couple of years for a week or so when I am on holiday in a country where automatic is what you get.
I think people will get used to joysticks in time just like all the other devices that remove us from the immediate experience of being in contact with the road. You might argue that you need a metre long joystick for that "fine grained control" but I think sailors have got over that issue in the last couple of hundred years...
This has been done 13(!) years ago by Mercedes Benz already, in their F 200 concept car.
It was entirely drive-by-wire using a sidestick for acceleration and braking too.
Interesting detail: Accelerating and braking was done by measuring the force applied
forwards and backwards on the stick without moving the stick, so the only dimension
in wich the stick actually moved was laterally for steering.
I've talked to people who have driven the thing, and apparently this worked very well.
The decoupling of the steering controls from external influences was actually seen as a
feature: The stick defined a steering angle, and the actual steering was handled by
the electronics, correcting for bumps or rough underground as needed. This made for
smooth driving and steering even on wet cobblestone pavement.
Others have been discussing solutions for or at least bringing up the problem where if you lose power in a drive by wire car, you're sort of toast.
It seems to me that this is a perfect scenario for air brakes. Have an electronic valve that's fail-open, and if the car loses power or sets the signal line low on purpose, it would basically stop the car dead in its tracks. While this wouldn't be ideal, especially in winter or at high speed, it's better than completely losing control of the car.
Running out of gas does not kill power steering. As long as your transmission is still engaged and you're still moving forward, the engine is still turning over and the accessory belts are still moving (i.e. power steering pump is still active). Those systems stop working when your RPMs drop below idle RPM.
Er, if you run out of petrol then the engine DOESN'T keep turning over. It stops, and as long as the clutch is engaged you'll come to an abrupt halt. Ever parked a car in gear? It's as good as using the handbrake.
Drill baby drill - on Mars
the ag tractor a friend of mine built and recently patented.
He insisted that it include a joy stick for steering control. I reminded him that a tractor would not respond to a joy stick movement the same way an airplane would, but he wanted one anyway, so I added code for it. Luckily I didn't rip out the steering wheel control code so he easily switched back over it with the push of a single button on the display panel after he discovered that the range of motion of the joystick wasn't great enough to map onto the range of motion of the wheels (four wheel drive, independently controlled). Moving the joystick out of the neutral position took enough effort that when the mechanical centering devices finally let go the joystick moved farther than he wanted it to move and the motion of the tractor became jerky as he tried to correct over-runs. We tried the entire range of sensitivity settings but none proved satisfactory. Now it is set so that when he reaches the end of a row a full left or right on the joystick creates the tightest turn possible so he can get a 180 degree turn on the tractor in order to line up for the next pass down the field, then it is back to the steering wheel. Driving down the road between fields he uses the steering wheel in front wheel steer mode (as apposed to back wheel, crab or circle steer modes).
Running with Linux for over 20 years!
How not to do it.
Game was unplayable with a joystick (digital) . Couldn't even get round the first bend.
Skimmed the article. Joystick is used to control car as expected - forward, back for throttle/brake and left/right for left/right. Big deal.
What I was hoping they would talk about was the real challenges with drive by wire - how to maintain control when the motor stalls / battery dies. Even with power steering / braking, the mechanical link is sufficient for control at low speeds (pushing incapacitated car off the road, towing with a buddy, etc.) If the answer is just more reliable gear and road side assistance, then fine - say it. But without details about the failure modes, I'm thinking this is still vaporware.
I'm in my right mind and I have the answer to everything!
I was getting tired of buying wheel/pedal add-ons for all my racing games. I'm glad to see they're starting to standardize.
Your brain is not a computer.
My dad is a T-2 incomplete paraplegic. He operates the brake and throttle through one hand control (that is mechanically connected to the pedals, making the vehicle possible to operate in a standard manner) and operates the wheel through a spinner knob (formerly known as a "necker knob") with the other hand. There are other controls out there, including joystick control
My dad did need to have the van inspected and retake his drivers test, and I do believe that the NHTSA requires a prescription for the legal installation of these tools. However, my dad only needed to show that he was capable of passing the drivers test with these adaptive tools.
I also seem to remember seeing that fully able people using hand controls had faster reaction times. 15 years ago, can't remember the source.
If controls were centred and symmetric then the car could be driven from either side. I don't know how well most right-handed people would adjust to using their left-hand but it's probably not a problem - when I fly power planes I hold the wheel/yoke with the left and the throttle with the right while in gliders I hold the stick in the right and the spoilers/speed-brake in the left.
What this would mean is no more changes needed for right-hand/left-hand drive countries or for delivery vehicles where the driver enters/exits from the curb-side.
It would also mean that the front occupants could switch off while driving - nice for grabbing a snack/nap/phone-call.
But there are pitfalls. We've seen aircraft accidents where there was confusion over who was flying. And "back-seat-drivers" would no longer be limited to yapping - they could grab the stick. And for law-enforcement there would be the issue of having to prove who was at the control when the vehicle was stopped for speeding, drunk, etc.
~~~~~~~
"You are not remembered for doing what is expected of you." - Atul Chitnis
The oldest family picture I have of someone in their non-horse-drawn vehicle is of my maternal great(-great?) grandfather driving his delivery truck - using a joystick. The truck looked like a horse-drawn wagon with a motor in front, and the joystick/lever for the front-axle. Next thing you know, "green transport" will go from hybrid and electric back to mammal-drawn.
Quick summary of some of the more obvious features, advantages, and disadvantages, based on my own thoughts and what I've seen other people saying. (Any additions? Things I missed... I'm sure I didn't think of everything.)
Features (and things they should do to make it safer):
Pros:
+ Novelty (new and shiny)
+ Handicapped-accessible (no legs)
+ Built-in cruise control; no leg fatigue (or hand fatigue) on long trips
+ Would be more like a video game; the younger generation might catch on quicker
+ Computerized control could make it safer, e.g. prevent roll-overs (using sensors, similar to anti-lock brakes, don't allow the driver to turn sharply enough to roll it over)
Cons:
– Novelty (new and expensive)
– Harder to do things with your hands while controlling your vehicle (with your legs... safer if you can't, though!)
– Easier to do things with your hands while not controlling your vehicle (going straight), i.e. less safe
– Smaller range of motion might make it difficult to perform maneuvers as precisely
– No backup for power-steering loss (might be a deal-breaker... even if you built a direct mechanical link to the tyres, it would be nearly impossible to control them, not enough leverage in the small stick)
Alexander Peter Kristopeit bought his basement from his mommy for one dollar.
Could somebody give me a car-based analogy to this article?
Arguing with an engineer is like wrestling a pig in the mud. After a while, you realize the engineer enjoys it.
no text
More music, fewer hits
Frightens the living daylights out of me driving an automatic car!
An automatically shifting car? Terrifying. What's next? Automatic traction control or *gasp* all-wheel drive? The horror... This automation thing has to stop.
You're driving along and suddenly the car jumps and changes up or down the gears. Hey car, I want to decide when I want you to change gear, don't want you jumping up and down through the gearbox when you feel like it.
Spoken like someone who rarely gets stuck in traffic jams. I like a manual transmission too (prefer it actually) but there is a beauty in simply pointing the car and having it go. If your automatic transmission lurches that much that it bothers you there is probably something wrong with the machine. Lots of cars have a manu-matic as well if you are really that desperate to control the shift points. Virtually everyone who has a manu-matic pretty much lets the car do the shifting most of the time though. Shifting manually is fun but a pointless exercise most of the time for most people.
I want to slowly lift off the clutch and get the engine to bite when I want it to bite.
The high end transmissions these days are automated clutches in one form or another. You shift just like normal but the clutch engagement is automatic and (usually) much faster than you could do it yourself. You still chose the shift points but there is no shift pedal - just a stick or paddles. Hate to say it but the clutch pedal is a relic that has no functional reason to exist anymore. It only sticks around because people like it - not because it is actually necessary or even all that useful 99% of the time.
I love the Powerglove... its so bad.
I wonder if they are trying to prepare us for flying cars? Just like the computer mouse. You introduce new concepts slowly so that the next new technology is easier to grasp.
That's funny and I see you're joking. Maybe you're thinking of the rudder pedals? My RWD cars have always had yaw control. The FWD cars too with some coaxing. Gas, turn, lift, countersteer, gas.... Given enough power you really don't even need to lift.
Now controlling that with the twitchiness of a joystick even if they do get the feedback right is another matter entirely. And that's coming from a person used to a very quick "sneeze and die" steering ratio. Lateral movement controls in a car are largely inferior than rotary (or pushbutton) controls because they are more easily affected by the movement of your body within the car during bumps and turns. I can hang onto a wheel or dial to steady myself and still provide usable control inputs, not so with a slider.
To counter the twitchiness, maybe you introduce acceleration into the movement: precise on-center and progressively faster steering (maybe not accel/decel) as you get to the end of travel. I predict that increases the learning curve and implementation difficulties, particularly between differing marques.
What happens when there's a power steering failure?
It doesn't turn. :-)
I know it's not a common problem, but it is a problem which randomly comes up. At least with a steering wheel the driver can generally muscle the wheels to turn
Have you ever actually tried to muscle a turn out of a car with a failed power steering system? If it is a hydraulic system with physical linkages, you *might* be able to steer it with enormous effort. If it is electronic (drive by wire) you can't turn it at all if the electrical system fails. In practice it really isn't a big problem. Mostly you just coast to a stop and stay wherever you are. The main risk is usually traffic around you. I *can* think of conditions where it would be a more immediate risk but they involve failure while doing evasive maneuvering or risky driving you probably shouldn't be doing anyway.
Frankly if they trust fly by wire systems in aircraft where the consequences of failure are ordinarily MUCH higher I'm not too worried about it in a car. The car makers are pretty well aware of the legal and PR costs of a failed steering system and they're engineered quite sturdily. By far the most common problem is leaking fluid which is annoying but rarely a catastrophic failure.
I rest my case.
I think that the steering wheel could be replaced with a joystick axis easily. I am concerned however, that it would be a lot harder for people to get used to gas and brake petals replaced with a joystick axis. For non-gamers it would be like trying to learn how to play FPS games for the first time with a mouse as the controller.
Also, currently the petals naturally return to the idle position when released and give pressure feedback when pressed. This is partially a safety issue as the car slows down if you pass out, stop paying attention, etc.
Would a joystick do that too? Is it healthy for your wrist to hold a joystick in a position for a long time with it exerting pressure on your body... after using a computer mouse and keyboard all day?
If anything, I would rather see simultaneous throttle gas/break hand controls AND gas/brake petals. The petals should get priority, while the hand control allows for an alternative control mechanism on long trips.
This is all dumb anyway. The real end game is to have the computer entirely control the car. That is what will eventually make driving more comfortable for the driver. Airplanes can fly themselves, yet they have not been around as long as cars. It is high time that industry and government invest in autonomous control of automobiles... if only for lethal speeds above 40 mpg.
...there is a cause why joystick manufacturers sell steering weels especially for racing games.
If the joystick would be better it would have superseded the steering whell in racing games already.
We all have seen the classic shop window accident, you know the one, driver puts the foot on the wrong pedal manoevouring in a car park, and modern automatic gearbox vehicles will take the command as maximum acceleration required. Thus the SUV ploughs through a shop window and halfway into the store. (How this doesn't generate lawsuits against the auto industry I don't know, I don't live in USA).
The danger of highly automated automobiles where minimal input is needed for acceleration is obvious. The danger of vehicles with hand operated throttles and automatic transmission is higher still. This is why automatic gearboxes on motorbikes haven't really taken off. This occured to me when I stepped off my motor scooter, leaving it in gear, and twisted the throttle as I was holding the handle bar. The big surged forward, this lead me to grip tighter, thus the bike shot off into the side of a car.
A joystick you can just lean on in a full size car? No thanks.
After logging in slashdot still does not take you back to the page you were on. It's been that way for 20 years.
How are you going to put all the important controls that are currently supplied by the steering wheel; like the radio, air conditioning, gps, etc.? Your joystick is going to be too large to move once you've got all of those buttons stuck to it! I know that thay've made mice with more buttons than a keyboard, so maybe they should use a mouse instead.
Who would win this election: Andrew Weiner vs Andrew Weiner's weiner.
This kind of approach makes me think about the drone pilots in Nevada. If the car is entirely drive-by-wire, maybe I could hire someone else to drive me to work, or better yet, home from the pub when I'm drunk. The real driver would never have to leave their office in Bangalore or Nevada or wherever! Just put a couple of cameras and proximity sensors on the bumpers and connect it up with 3G wireless and voilla!
This will be popular with the granola's that haven't a clue of the value of great tactile feedback in a properly designed steering and braking system. Those Atari joysticks are just as good to them. Even better will be when the car drives itself and they can blissfully text and email. Just like if they were riding the bus.
Thumbsticks are not joysticks
Technically true, but what are you trying to say? Thumbsticks and arcade-style analog joysticks operate on the same principles, and someone who has reached license age is likely to be at least as familiar with their principles as with those of a steering wheel.
The Citroën CX, SM and XM, and various Maseratis had DIRAVI - a fully-decoupled system where the steering wheel had no mechanical connection to the steering rack under normal conditions. If the hydraulic system lost pressure, then you got really heavy steering with about a quarter turn of play in the centre because there was a loose safety coupling to keep it together in such an event.
There was a variant of the control unit built with a joystick, which is pretty simple if you study how the DIRAVI system works. The engine ran a big hydraulic pump, and a hydraulic motor in each wheel provided the drive controlled by the fore-and-aft movement of the joystick.
The project was scrapped because it was too damn weird to drive. I don't know if any of the prototypes still exist, but at the time Citroën management had a habit of destroying all evidence of unsuccessful projects.
How about all pedal control? Have it set up a bit like aircraft rudder pedals, except instead of toe-brakes you've got acceleration on one pedal and brake on the other, with turning by pushing them in like a rudder. Then it's hands free.
Cause this has to be the worst idea ever!
500 or 750 points?
Do we get style kudos for drifting around corners or achieving air?
How many points for nudging the rear bumper of the fast-lane campers if we send them into the jersey wall and do everyone a favor?
I definitely want the Twisted Metal - Reality expansion pack for my Honda. That way I can just blow them up without damaging my car.
Ammo is hella cheaper than body work XD
Don't kid yourself. It's the size of the regexp AND how you use it that counts.
This is the best application for Windows Mobile yet! I love Microsoft, and there's no better operating system to control all of my car's primary functions (such as steering, braking, and acceleration) than Microsoft Windows! Microsoft Windows makes my commuting experience that much more refreshing and enjoyable. It's like having a personal chauffeur! See you on the highway!
I had the 'power' part of the power steering fail while i was doing 40mph on a twisty road. It gave me a fright but i could still control the vehicle and drive carefully to a garage. Good luck trying that with fly-by-wire.
They whose government reduces their essential liberties for temporary security, receive neither liberty nor security.
Chevrolet built a joystick-controlled Impala in 1958.
Seriously, why free up my feet in a car? I'd rather they work on using some technology that frees up my hands, so I could dick around with my iPod.
Currently hooked on AMP
I've been thinking a lot about this since I got inspired by SAAB
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/motoring/motoring-will-the-joystick-take-the-joy-out-of-driving-roger-bell-surveys-an-initiative-designed-to-take-motoring-into-the-21st-century-1482588.html
in 1993.
1993.
I want a dual stick control like a tank. And when driving, put up a green and black wireframe representation of the road on the LCD screen just like Battlezone.
If a joystick's good enough for control of an aircraft as large as the Airbus A380, I'm sure it can be adapted to a car. If you think pilots don't have a need for accuracy or that they don't travel at high speed you're simply mistaken
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
There's no gain control algorithm that'll let you have both fine and (fast) coarse control algorithm if its only input is vehicle speed, and the joystick has a fixed range of motion.
Clearly you don't fly remote control planes. On a modern r/c plane with most modern r/c radios, you get the option of setting up something called exponential (exp for short). Basically you create a curve such that small movements near the center result in small changs whereas larger movements towards the extremes produce much larger changes. If you're a sloppy pilot or have trouble with keeping your hands steady (for example due to a medical condition) the other thing you can do is program in a dead zone.
The results with expo are quite good and r/c pilots spend time setting it up to taste. Most find around 30% expo makes it easy to make small corrections while flying but if you really need an extreme movement, all you have to do is max out the stick which is quite intuitive.
All that said the center console is the wrong place for the joystick. The joystick should be well away from passengers. I think a side stick is the way to go.
People forget that all aircraft use joysticks and that flying aircraft requires MORE precision than driving cars.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
Don't forget the fact that you usually have a limited field of vision in video games as well (at least in my limited experience with driving games), and you can't turn your head to look anywhere other than straight ahead. Either that, or the game puts you in a third person view behind the vehicle, which is better for seeing what's around you but terrible for seeing what's directly in front of you.
In the UK the default is a manual gearbox. The vast majority of cars are manual, and if you hire a rental car you generally have to ask for automatic, they will give you manual by default.
Here we have two different driving licences - automatic and manual. If you pass your test on an automatic, you're only allowed to drive an automatic. If you pass in a manual gearbox car, you can drive either when you pass. As a consequence the vast majority of people take their test in a manual car so they have the freedom to drive either after testing.
Nope, I wasn't trolling, having a bit of fun pointing out to the parent poster who said that a technology that didn't give you direct feedback with the road wasn't a good idea, and I was pointing out that many folk in the USA drive cars with gearboxes that automate processes for them (so why the concern?). Funny thing is loads of people picked up on my chat about manual vs automatic gearboxes and very few picked up on my comments on steering wheels vs joysticks etc. Ah well it's just a hang out and chat space so whatever people want to chat about is fine by me. I seem to have touched a nerve though :-)
It was a genuine comment by me though, the first time I ever drove an automatic was when I came to the USA for the first time when I was about 30, I'd driven manual cars for 12 years, and I was over for a mate's wedding. I had to pull him aside as we got off the plane at Miami from London and ask "how do you drive an automatic? I am about to pick one up in half an hour at the airport and I haven't a clue!". I was dead nervous, picked up the car and straight into 5 lanes of Miami rush hour traffic and I hadn't a clue what this automatic was doing or what the numbers on the automatic gearstick meant, if I was supposed to use them at all or when...
I'm thinking maybe a thumbstick the steering wheel of high-performance cars for people who just have to control everything - let the user control the distribution of braking force to each wheel... of course the onboard computer would do a better job, but it is one actual use for a joystick in a car...
I think they misspelled 'Die-By-Wire.'
Never shake hands with a man you meet in a fertility clinic.
(Pun intended in title)
I've driven forklifts, knuckle-booms, scissor lifts and loaders all with various forms of joystick control.
Joystick controlled forklifts are the best!
Still, I'm not sure it's right for a car. All the vehicles above go slowly and need to manouver (sp?)
in tight spots. Joysticks would not seem so good for fast travel, though aircraft use them.
It might be good to have a joystick as an auxilliary control for parking and doing donuts...
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Talk about reinventing the wheel.
http://cbr.honda.com/?section=cbr1000rr&page=photo
I sincerely want to know where my airbag will be...forget the legroom and give me a head-up display helmet,I can fly this...
Imagine how many people will end up being impaled by these things in accdients.
One thing about steering wheel and brake/accelerator, is that you only need to think with your feet to accelerate/brake or only think with your hands to turn. Whether this is a good or bad thing, the results will tell.
A way they could try to test this is perhaps, as they use two joysticks, have only 1 degree of control per joystick. Say, the left to turn and the right to accelerate/brake, and compare it with a steering wheel which moves forward/backward (airplane style) for accelerating and braking.
The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than the question of whether a submarine can swim.
Bomb Exxon now!
whatcouldpossiblygowrong?
But, I wanted socialized health insurance!
If you look at various vehicles, the smaller it is, the more direct the control is, and there are good reasons for that:
In a small vehicle, there are a lot of feedbacks (vibration, inertial forces, sound) that help the driver control it, in fact it adds a lot of information above just vision and makes fine control possible.
If the vehicle is very small, there is also a direct influence on body position on the handling...This trend of "the smaller your vehicle is, the more direct the controls should be" is evident if you consider those few examples:
skateboard/rollers/ski/snowboard/...: direct control through your feets, huge influence of whole body, more like a different way of running than a vehicle : simulations sucks and are completely useless for mastering those sports
bicycle/motorcyle: direct control without multiplication of steering angle through handle bar, body position very important, need good balance, simulation very poor and almost useless for learning to drive.
quad: like a small car, but input is still direct and body position quite important. Balnaces skilss are not as vital as for 2-wheeled vehicles. Simulation stil not very usefull....
car: direct input with fixed demultiplication, body position mostly not relevant but still a lot of direct feedback. Simulation usefull, but not really for racedrivng or getting used to heavy traffic/different road conditions.
slow moving 4-wheeled vehicles, trucks: body position unimportant, few direct feedback (but still some),: Simulation quite usefull, except for traffic
planes, trains: body position unimportant, few direct feedback besides inertial forces (and approximating those with angling simulation cabins work good for large planes), no direct interraction with other vehicles. simualtion very usefull, you can really learn to pilot this way, because it is in a way a much more abstract and, yes, simpler control (hence the auto-pilot...)
Given that, extending stick driving to trucks may be feasible (but still, they are on the same roads as car)...
For car, it looks like a really really bad idea.
For motorcycles, it is simply suicide....
I think building an arm rest where at the end is a depression the length of the joystick. Build the joystick with a flat top to it and have it finger operable. Add a low pressure pot to the top of the joystick and you have dead man switch. This design would allow the arm and wrist to rest comfortably and let finger motion control the car with finer movements with less stress than giant stick arm controls.
Could also transform the 'joystick' into a mini wheel. In the RC hobby, we use small steering wheels and triggers for throttle. I dont even use the full wheel for steering. Half the time I'm barely nudging the steering with a finger. Though the steering on the controller does have a strong spring to center return.
I'd kind of like to have left hand throttle/brake and right hand steering, or visa versa. Frankly I drive left hand only as I'm used to driving forklifts and manual transmission cars.
Another joystick method could be two forward/back axis steering. Pull right back to turn right, pull left back to turn left.. pushing works the same but have both mechanically attached to each other so you can have wheel like counter force from the opposing hand. Lever movement could be much longer throw than a joystick. Throttle/brake can be operated by hat switches, triggers or dials on the tips of the levers. Throttle could also be twist controlled.
Consider yourself blessed if you are sneezed on by a dragon and only get wet, it could have been a fireball.
An automatic transmission's torque converter effectively disengages the engine from the transmission for your purposes. Next time you park your automatic-transmission car on a hill, instead of placing the gear selector in park and setting the parking brake, just leave the car in reverse or drive and see how long the car stays put.
Next step: Making them fly!
VOLVO had a joystick prototype in the late 80's early 90's. I remember watching "beyond 2000" or some "future" show as a kid where some dude was driving a Volvo with no steering wheel, no gas pedal, and no brake pedal. He had his hand on a joystick where a console shifter would be. He pushed forward and the car went forward, he let it return to the middle and the car slowed down and stopped, he pulled back and it went in reverse. The lack of pedals and steering wheel made the drivers seat safer. They said they were trying to work out some problems with bumps causing eradic turning motions since it was all drive by wire, and the forward throttle took some getting used to as did any panic braking. That was 20 years ago! Where the hell is this thing? Why are we always reinventing the wheel?
There is one problem with this that seems like a showstopper to me. A road car steering wheel needs to have light enough steering centering forces to avoid tiring the driver and so that the tiniest old lady can drive it. A steering wheel provides for this by using a large range of motion to control the steering. A joystick can't provide that much range of motion, so it would have to be designed with much stronger forces to make sure it isn't overly sensitive to the lightest touch. Otherwise the driver would constantly be overcorrecting and weaving all over the road. And then like I said, if they make the steering too heavy, then the driver will become tired and the elderly and physically disabled will have difficulty driving it. A steering wheel is a logical solution for this problem because it just spins around. The range of motion consists of spinning in place so it makes good use of space inside the vehicle.
FYI, it's "pedals". You're not stepping on flowers.
Also, momentum helps with the pedal option: it encourages more braking and less acceleration. A joystick where pushing forward is acceleration and pulling back is braking uses your momentum against your desires both ways.
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
Mid 90's in high school I had a '72 VW Beetle (convertible, loved that car). One of the many problems I encountered was a broken fuel gauge that couldnt be figured out - cheaply.
In 5 years of driving that car I probably ran out of gas.... 3 times. So yes, I was incompetent (and broke) as well. But somehow I trusted that car more than I do my VW CC today. I could literally _turn the car off_ with the key driving down the road and coast along with no problem - downshifting and letting out the clutch to turn the car back on (now with the key in the 'off' position.
Broken starter? Just park aimed downhill everywhere - worked for me for months.
I fixed about 60% of every problem I had on that car with duct tape, coat hanger wire, elbow grease and a little time figuring it out.
My point: I miss those days. Yes the cars broke down more often but at least I could do something about it. Now every other month the "Check Engine" comes on and its a couple hundred bucks at the dealership for 'a chip malfunction' or 'a bad sensor.' Screw it, I might hop onto Craigslist right now and see what I can pick up as a 'weekender' for a grand...
---- The real Slashdot is still here. You just have to browse at -1 to read the comments.
Very good point. I've run out of gas twice
Once is unlucky. Twice is incompetent.
...or a broken/sticky/inaccurate fuel gauge. It's happened to me more than once, on different cars no less. Don't see how that can fairly be called incompetence.
I once even had a car run out of gas as I was pulling into the gas station, and I was able to coast up to the pump. Now that's lucky.
Knowledge != Intelligence
Moving the joystick out of the neutral position took enough effort that when the mechanical centering devices finally let go the joystick moved farther than he wanted it to move and the motion of the tractor became jerky as he tried to correct over-runs.
Didn't you try to fix the joystick, or find a better one? With a sig like that, I'd certainly expect you to hack it into something that worked, given a problem caused by a fairly obvious deficiency: the springs on the joystick were probably too tight.
Alexander Peter Kristopeit bought his basement from his mommy for one dollar.
For non-gamers it would be like trying to learn how to play FPS games for the first time with a mouse as the controller.
Learning to drive a car is difficult anyway. Would it be more difficult to learn with a joystick as opposed to a wheel and pedals? Especially given how many of the new drivers already know how to use a joystick?
Also, currently the petals naturally return to the idle position when released and give pressure feedback when pressed. This is partially a safety issue as the car slows down if you pass out, stop paying attention, etc.
This would be made fairly irrelevant by adding new safety features to the vehicle. If you're monitoring the driver's vitals, you can tell if something goes wrong, and by putting sensors in/near the joystick you can tell if the driver takes his hand off the controls for some reason. If anything goes wrong, sound an alarm (to wake the driver up if possible) and stop the car as quickly as is possible and practical (you don't want someone rear-ending you).
Would a joystick do that too? Is it healthy for your wrist to hold a joystick in a position for a long time with it exerting pressure on your body... after using a computer mouse and keyboard all day?
Only changing your velocity or direction would require pressure against the joystick. Holding the joystick in the neutral position would equal moving straight ahead at a constant speed.
Airplanes can fly themselves
Flying an airplane does not require nearly as much situational awareness as driving a car does. There's next-to-nothing to hit up there... all you have to watch out for is other planes and the ground. It's easy to program a computer to avoid the latter, and the former are relatively few and far between and are carefully routed around each other by ground-based air traffic control.
speeds above 40 mpg
You're thinking of MPH, not MPG.
Alexander Peter Kristopeit bought his basement from his mommy for one dollar.