Standardization of the In-Car Gesture Interaction Space

Driven by technological advancements, gesture interfaces have recently found their way into vehicular prototypes of various kind. Unfortunately, their application is less than perfect and detailed information about preferred gesture execution regions, spatial extent, and time behavior are not available yet. Providing car (interior) manufacturer with gesture characteristics would allow them to design future in-vehicle concepts in a way to not interfere with gestural interaction. To tackle the problem, this research aims as preliminary work for a later standardization of the diverse properties of gestures and gesture classes similarly to what is already standardized in norms such as ISO 3958/4040 for placement and reachability of traditional controls and indicators. We have set up a real driving experiment recording trajectories and time behavior of gestures related to car and media control tasks. Data evaluation reveals that most of the subjects perform gestures in the same region (bounded by a triangle steering wheel, rear mirror, and gearshift) and with similar spatial extent (on average below 2 sec.). The generated density plots can be further used for an initial discussion about gesture execution in the passenger compartment. The ?final aim is to propose a new standard on permitted gesture properties (time, space) in the car.