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."

Comments

Johnny Cab

[Anonymous Coward]

Have a hellava day!

Re:Johnny Cab

[Mikkeles]

I wonder if Honda or Nissan will now go for a Wii controller?

Re:Johnny Cab

[Bat Country]

Actually, it's probably because the 2d presentation of 3d space denies you of depth perception and along with the lack of physical feedback (vibration, accurately modelled engine noise) allows you to severely misjudge your speed and how well your vehicle is gripping the road.

The only thing inherently worse about driving with a stick than with a wheel and pedals is that it's much easier to accidentally overcorrect, especially if you are unfamiliar with using an analog joystick (in other words you're either not pressing it at all, or you're pressing it as far to the right or left as you can). Well, there's also the stopping issue causing your body to shift and therefore bump the stick, possibly preventing you from stopping.

At low speeds, I don't see these as being much more dangerous than a conventional steering mechanism, especially if there is signal noise filtration (shaky hands? let's ignore that) and a rate-of-turn limiter that scales with speed (simulation of "wheel resistance").

The lack of a steering wheel might increase the risk of back and neck injury in an accident, however, due to the increased space you'd have to move in (even with an airbag).

Re:Johnny Cab

[JshWright]

The lack of a steering wheel might increase the risk of back and neck injury in an accident, however, due to the increased space you'd have to move in (even with an airbag).

Compared to the alternative of my body trying to occupy the same space as the steering column (or vice-versa)? Assuming a shoulder belt and head rest, the middle seat in the back is generally the safest seat in the car, precisely because there is less chance of a piece of the car intruding in your personal space.

Re:Johnny Cab

[StikyPad]

The thing about a steering wheel vs. joystick is that the former translates a large change in angle to a much smaller change in wheel angle, while a joystick does the exact opposite. You could certainly engineer a joystick with similar characteristics, but it would take up a lot of room -- hence the invention of the steering wheel.

The minor corrections that we continuously, yet nearly unconsciously, make while driving would become burdensome when applied to a joystick. In a simulation like a video game, there are no road imperfections, steering dead zones, alignment, or tire balancing issues, and therefore mastering the joystick is quite possible (but by no means simple). Many games also employ variable stick-to-wheel angle ratios, so that a given stick angle at a low speed results in a larger change in wheel angle than at higher speed. These would likely be necessary for real vehicles, but they make it difficult to predict directional changes at a constant speed, and increasingly difficult with speed AND direction changes, since stick deflection must be increased or decreased as velocity changes.

Even absent such "assistant" technologies, without independent controls steering while changing velocity becomes more challenging, not less. Say you're braking around a turn, which is followed by a short length of straight road and a stop sign/light. With independent controls, you maintain more or less static pressure on the brake pedal, while allowing the steering wheel to return to its natural zero-angle position. With a joystick, you have to maintain that position backwards while deliberately moving toward the center X axis, which is a much more challenging proposition, especially with inertial forces.

Finally, the joystick necessarily either falls victim to one of two (or both) of the following:

1) gorilla-arm when mounted in front of the driver, due to the fact that the operator can't rest any weight on the control.

2) When mounted at or near the console, it requires the exclusive use of the the closest arm, which can also lead to fatigue. In a console-mounted position, it's hard to imagine a positioning system as effective as tilt/telescopic steering wheels to compensate for differing arm lengths and seat positions (which reflect torso and leg length).

The steering wheel may be an old design, but they got it right.

Re:Johnny Cab

[FrankieBaby1986]

As far as braking and accel goes, i'd imagine the stick is pull back for accel and push forward for braking. At least I hope. This way overbraking due to decel will be the issue, which tech like ABS should help with. Which is better, in theory then underbraking.

However, that leads to a possible over accel condition, which can be very bad, but once ur pushed into your seat, slowing should be much easier.

Power Steering failure?

[r_jensen11]

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.

Re:Power Steering failure?

[koreaman]

Very good point. I've run out of gas twice, which kills power steering -- both times I'd have been stranded in the middle lane of a busy road had I not been able to coast the car long enough to pull over somewhere safe.

Re:Power Steering failure?

[stoolpigeon]

When I was pretty new to driving, I was rolling down a residential street in my dad's '78 Cougar. The engine died and the power steering went with it. I wasn't going too fast, but I was rolling straight toward a parked car. It took all I had to slowly pull the car into a turn. It was a very strange sensation, slowly heading towards a fender bender as I worked at the wheel. I did manage it, and it wouldn't have been too bad for me physically, but the other car was much newer and smaller and I would have probably banged it up pretty good.
 
I lost power steering in my '83 Celica when a belt broke. I was on the freeway and didn't even notice until I exited onto surface streets and could feel that it was much more difficult to turn. In either case with a fly-by-wire type system I'd have been in trouble. Having a mechanical backup for a loss of power is essential.

Re:Power Steering failure?

[MBGMorden]

A joystick can be linked in the same way that a steering wheel can. Look at aircraft: many older ones have joysticks. Most newer craft have yokes (essentially a wheel), but both are linked to the control surfaces physically in much the same way that a steering wheel is linked to a car's wheels.

Re:Power Steering failure?

[kidgenius]

Actually, Airbus' have joysticks, and they are all electrical, no connections to the actual surfaces, and no feedback either. Boeings all have yokes, the newer ones being completely separated from the actual surfaces (737 is the only one that has a quasi-connection, and they have feedback due to some motors in the base. The next gen is going to be joysticks that have feedback with motors.

Re:Power Steering failure?

[isorox]

Very good point. I've run out of gas twice

Once is unlucky. Twice is incompetent.

Re:Power Steering failure?

[MBGMorden]

Airbus aircraft are completely fly-by-wire, I don't believe there is any mechanical connection to the control surfaces at all.

A lot of newer fighter aircraft and such are too, but that's really a separate issue. Yokes or joysticks can both be fly-by-wire, but both have also traditionally been physically linked to the controls. Nothing about being a joystick necessarily *requires* the system to be fly-by-wire.

Re:Power Steering failure?

[pnewhook]

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).

Not true at all.

I've been in a situation where the engine is off, still in drive, and going downhill (I was actually accelerating). I quickly lost both power steering and power brakes as I used them. Everything gets manual very quickly.

Re:Power Steering failure?

[DeLaNooch]

It doesn't even really hold true to that assumption. Like Aldhibah said, unless you're coasting down a long hill or are being pushed by a group of body builders, the wheels will have to be disengaged from the engine (i.e. in neutral) if you're planning on getting anywhere.

Re:Power Steering failure?

[mcgrew]

Very good point. I've run out of gas twice
Once is unlucky. Twice is incompetent.

Not if your gas guage is broke, or if you are.

Re:Power Steering failure?

[bitt3n]

Very good point. I've run out of gas twice

Once is unlucky. Twice is incompetent.

Thrice is enemy action.

Re:Power Steering failure?

[dkf]

Very good point. I've run out of gas twice

Once is unlucky. Twice is incompetent.

Not if your gas guage is broke, or if you are.

Oh, but both are marks of incompetence. On the first one, not getting your gas meter fixed when you know it is broken, or not suspecting that something is wrong when it doesn't go down, is a mark of basic incompetence. On the second, undertaking substantial travel without the money to do so... well, why is it not incompetence? (And if you know you're running low, why not use techniques to increase your efficiency so that you can get to the next gas station?)

Great

[PeeShootr]

Great...because people aren't crappy enough drivers with an interface that they understand and have been using for decades.

Re:Great

[dnahelicase]

This is exactly what I need. You don't know how many times I've been driving and wished that I could use just my hands instead of me feet. This would free up my feet so I could use them to dial my cell phone, mess with the radio, flip people the middle toe...

Old news - Saab tried this in the 80s

[Viol8]

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...

Re:Old news - Saab tried this in the 80s

[caseih]

That's not what I remember. I remember that it was very accurate and very quick. It was easy to safely swerve around around a pylon safely, for example. Much more so than a wheel. Ultimately a stick would highly benefit from a variable ratio. The faster you go, the more reduced the ratio is. Or if you move the stick hard and fast, the ratio temporarily increases or something. With such a system, subtle maneuvers should be easy and accurate.

joystick vs k&m

[Luyseyal]

What, no keyboard + mouse option?

-l

Re:joystick vs k&m

[JediTrainer]

Wicked. Hold down ALT and now I can strafe to parallel park.

Won't catch on until you can keybind

[Gorm the DBA]

It'll all be for noobs until you can keybind your macros...which requires a much more complex interface than a simple joystick...I mean, come on, what is this, pac-man?

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.

Re:Won't catch on until you can keybind

[oldspewey]

Great, another venue for vi / emacs arguments to play out.

reversed controls?

[meow27]

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

Special license needed?

[wvmarle]

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.

Re:Special license needed?

[Bazman]

In the UK you can pass your test in an automatic car, but then you aren't allowed to drive a stick (what we call 'manual gearbox'). You need to take your test in a manual gearbox car to be allowed to drive manual+auto.

One of the great things about old land rovers like mine is of course the non-standard controls that make it harder for people to steal. First it's diesel, so you have to know to warm the engine on the 'glow' setting for a bit. If they get past that and the engine starts, then they have to know I've left the transfer box lever in neutral so the wheels won't go round even with the gear lever in. Oh and just for fun I can leave it in 4wd so if they do nick it the transmission will lock up on the road and leave them with a broken car. And half the time the battery is disconnected anyway because it goes flat if I don't drive for two weeks. Drive-by-wire? No thanks! And all those wusses complaining about failing power steering! Sheesh, grow some muscles!

Re:Special license needed?

[spaceyhackerlady]

Not having pedals or a steering column to deal with in a crash gives the engineers lots of scope to make cars safer. I'll be following this with interest.

The control layout we have in cars today wasn't finalized until after WW2. Prior to that, many cars had the accelerator in the middle, with the clutch and brake on either side. Some cars had unique setups - ever driven a Model T?

Even today, there are two "standards" for minor controls on right hand drive cars. British RHD cars have the turning signals on the left of the steering column. Japanese and Australian RHD cars have the turning signals on the right. I drive a Mitsubishi L300 Delica, so I'm used to reaching with my right hand for the turning signals.

While it had a steering wheel, the GM Hy-Wire concept was drive by wire as well. Some Citroen models were effectively drive by wire (e.g. the SM), with no mechanical connection between the steering wheel and road wheels unless the engine or power steering failed.

...laura

Re:Special license needed?

[Anonymous Coward]

In many countries, you do actually need a different license to drive a manual. The UK and Australia, for example. The manual license covers both, since automatic cars are trivial to drive if you can already drive a manual. The reverse is not true.

Changing the controls means that you need to concentrate far more on operating the controls, which means you won't be concentrating on the road as much. A driving license test for your ability to safely control the car. There's no way you'd be able to pass a driving test in a manual unless you were comfortable with the controls, almost to the point where they become effortless.

For example - an emergency stop. In an automatic, you just step on the brake pedal, and back off slightly when the tyres start to lose grip. In a manual, you also have to step on the clutch. If you don't, the engine will stall, taking the power steering and brakes with it. Suddenly, you're not pushing the break pedal nearly hard enough, and you probably won't be able to react to that before you hit something. Plus you've probably damaged the gearbox.

Switching to a joystick is a far greater difference than just adding a clutch and gear stick, particularly if you also remove the pedals. All that motor memory you developed driving with a wheel and pedals becomes completely useless. Taking the emergency stop example again - your first instinct will be to hit the brake pedal. Chances are your right foot will move without any conscious thought. There isn't a brake pedal. By the time you realise this, and remember what you're supposed to do, it'll probably already be too late.

Re:Special license needed?

[mister_playboy]

In the UK you can pass your test in an automatic car, but then you aren't allowed to drive a stick (what we call 'manual gearbox'). You need to take your test in a manual gearbox car to be allowed to drive manual+auto.

We should do this in the US, actually.

Drive-by-wire? No thanks! And all those wusses complaining about failing power steering! Sheesh, grow some muscles!

Actually, manual and power assisted steering boxes use very different gearings. There is less torque multiplication (lower numerical gearing) in a assisted box... because it's "assisted" and doesn't normally need it. A car with non functioning power steering will need much more effort than a car with manual steering because the gearing is wider. Vehicle weight over the front tires and the front tire width has a big effect, as well.

An example would be the manual steering in my father's 1955 Stuebaker versus the 1984 BMW 318i I drove which had power steering but would leak out all its fluid in a day or so (so I always drove it empty). The BMW took a lot of effort, the Studebaker much less so.

Re:Special license needed?

[DRACO-]

Extra fun confusion. American cars, right hand floor console is the gearshift for manual transmission. On the left side of the column is the signals.

On a forklift, the gearshift is on the left or on both sides of the column. Some nights after work I'd jump in my car.. put it in reverse naturally and back out, return the transmission to neutral and coast the last few feet, then flip the righthand turn signal trying to shift to forward. Thankfully I'd hear the turn signal and realize what I failed to accomplish before moving on. Once I realized I wasn't on a forklift anymore, I'd drive just fine.

I haven't been in on a forklift in 2 years, I still manage to do the same thing every once in a while in my column shift automatic transmission pickup. Usually though, I'll flip the left blinker on thinking I'm going into reverse.

Driving a joystick car shouldnt be too hard. I've driven bobcats no problem. Pulling back on the controls is natural to stop forward motion.

I seem to remember

[DaMattster]

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.

Re:I seem to remember

[OzPeter]

Found some pics of the Firebird III showing the "joystick"

Re:I seem to remember

[BitZtream]

The Wright brothers kept trying because they were dealing with a new field and improvements to technology were being made.

Driving with a stick is not a new field, a little history and you'd notice that cars started out this way. Steering wheels were the progression AWAY from driving with a stick. To top it off, nothing has changed to improve the technology. Adding computers and fly by wire actually makes it worse, unless you add even more technology to make it essentially the same as before you added the computer.

This is roughly the same as arguing that its a good idea to put the engine the Wright brothers used in the Flyer into your modern day Cessna and trying to fly it.

You are correct, if no one tried there would never be any improvements ... problem is, they already tried, and the improvement was NOT TO USE A STICK.

History is hard, lets go shopping!

Re:I seem to remember

[RightwingNutjob]

The steering wheel in my Chevy is about 18 inches in diameter and goes two full turns in each direction to turn the front wheels through about +-/40 degrees. Driving on the highway, it's very rare to make motions more than about 1 inches in either direction. That's a max error of 1in/[(4*18*3in)/80deg] = approx 0.5 deg. You could imagine a speed-sensitive joystick doing that for you, giving you that range over the full max range of the joystick to give you about the same precision as you get with your hand making small motions on the steering wheel.

The problem is that when you're on city streets, going between 0-30mph, you need to make both precise small corrections that correspond to fractions of an inch on a steering wheel, but occasionally at the same speeds, you need to make larger fast motions to avoid potholes, people in parked cars opening their doors, little children running out into the street, or idiots on cell phones not watching where they're going and drifting into your lane. 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.

Outside of very constrained environments like factory floors and airport tarmacs, I don't think there's really a place for joystick-only control, just because the same dynamic range that you have in a multi-turn wheel just isn't there.

Finally

[decipher_saint]

A car with yaw control...

So many problems...

[ZenDragon]

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.

Re:So many problems...

[cptdondo]

I've flown an F15 simulator (the real one, not FlightGear) and the joy stick is pretty cool once you figure it out.

The plane is fly-by-wire. You set the stick to what you want and the computers take care of it. So you set the stick to fly straight and the computers fly it straight.

The one disconcerting thing is that the stick doesn't center; you put the plane in a right hand turn and it stays there until you apply reverse pressure to make it fly straight.

So I can see something like this. You set it to go straight and it does. You set it to turn left, and it will center like a steering wheel does.

You push forward to accelerate and pull back to slow down. You pull back it slows down and stops and stays stopped. You release the pressure and pull back and the car shifts into reverse.

Very different from a 1960s type system; we have lots better technology now.

Re:So many problems...

[clone53421]

5) Cannot eat breakfast burrito and twitter that I am eating a breakfast burrito while steering with knee anymore.

FTFY. Wait... were you describing a problem, or a solution?

Need for Speed: Reality Edition

[Stregano]

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.

Re:Force Feedback?

[ByOhTek]

The feedback is critical. The problem is, a force feedback on the joystick would probably make a bigger difference than on a wheel, since smaller movements would make larger turns. In that vein, it seems a wheel would give more fine-grained control. You may not be able to change the turn angle as fast, but you would probably be able to be more precise, which in most cases, I think is more important.

Feel free to ignore

[moogied]

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.

Here already?

[snspdaarf]

From watching people drive, one would think many already have a hand on the joystick.

Re:Force Feedback?

[Captain Splendid]

but you would probably be able to be more precise, which in most cases, I think is more important.

Especially in Europe. I can see joystick control working fine on American streets and highways, but in countries where they have two-lane roads barely the width of two smart cars, I'm not so sure.

Re:Force Feedback?

[0100010001010011]

Even worse is that the dynamics of a vehicle can make joystick control even worse. When you're just on a computer there is no angular acceleration of your body so its relatively simple.

As you go into a left turn, your hand wants to keep going the direction it was going, which is actually right from your frame of reference. Meaning you have to pull left harder.

Except that pull isn't the same for all speeds. Either they're going to have to dial down the controls for at speed or you're going to have a few people that get it up to 60 mph try to take a turn and over shoot their intended position....

I can just see it

[overshoot]

when the kid, puppy, cat, or even coffee do something unexpected.

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?

Re:They should just put USB ports into the dash

[oldspewey]

Overkill. All you really need to do anything in this world is a mouse with one single button.

Re:Force Feedback?

[Bertie]

Modern cars, sadly, have little of the feedback of old. I'm convinced this makes them less safe, because you can't feel what the road's doing under you like you used to. This, coupled with ever-fatter tyres which grip and grip and grip and then suddenly don't grip, adds up to bad news. But people mostly manage. Feedback's great, but it doesn't seem to be necessary for most driving conditions.

Re:Force Feedback?

[Devout_IPUite]

In racing games it's usually considered far preferable to use a wheel over a joystick because honestly you really don't need to go from straight to 40 degrees that quickly. Ever. The car has traction limits.

Control > Twitch.

Re:Where's the beef?

[smooth wombat]

No pictures? How can they not show us any pictures of this?

Ask and you shall receive: picture index.

If you look at the third row from the top, the middle picture, that is the steering system they are talking about. I know it doesn't look like a joystick but the caption says it is of the Toyota FT-EV II, the same one mentioned in the article.

Re:zomg

[Devout_IPUite]

Apparently you haven't played many racing games...

Wheels make the games easier, not harder. Playing GT4 on high challenge levels in fast cars with a joystick is really pretty damn hard.

Re:Force Feedback?

[gnick]

I swear to God, Jimmy, if you bump me again while I'm driving I'll drive us into the next tree I see!

change drivers without stopping

[siriuskase]

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.

Re:Force Feedback?

[LifesABeach]

Putting a Joy Stick in the hands of a Social Pathetic Driver like Soccer Mom, Baseball Dad, or Hockey Mom? I didn't think YouTube had that much storage space available,

I don't understand

[Bruiser80]

Could somebody give me a car-based analogy to this article?

Horror

[sjbe]

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.

Re:Great...

[clone53421]

Didn't you mean up-up-down-down-L-R-L-R-B-A-start?