Earlier this month, Atmel debuted its AvantCar concept at CES 2014 in Las Vegas. The fully functional console features two large curved touchscreen displays – without mechanical buttons. Instead, the touchscreens integrate capacitive touch buttons and sliders, allowing users to navigate general applications typically found within an automotive center console.
This includes global navigation system (GPS), car thermostat, audio controls for a radio or media player, seat controls and more. AvantCar also allows drivers to personalize their in-vehicle environment using advanced touch capabilities and LIN connectivity system to control ambient lighting.
According to Atmel Marketing Director Stephan Thaler, AvantCar successfully demonstrates the future of human machine interface (HMI) in upcoming vehicles. Indeed, next-generation automotive designs will be influenced by a wide range of trends in the consumer market such as slick and curved centerstack designs, as well as customization by appearance, color, navigation and interaction with a smartphone or tablet.
Atmel offers a number of comprehensive platforms and solutions to address the current and future requirements of a modern in-vehicle human-machine interface (HMI). However, the AvantCar Centerstack demo is the company’s first fully functional concept showcasing groundbreaking solutions within the automobile. To be sure, AvantCar is powered entirely by Atmel technology, including maXTouch (two touchscreens), XSense (curved panel design), QTouch (touch buttons and sliders), dedicated algorithms running on Atmel touch chips and microcontrollers (proximity detection), as well as LIN-based ambient lighting control.
Earlier this month, Atmel debuted its AvantCar concept at CES 2014 in Las Vegas. The fully functional console features two large curved touchscreen displays – without mechanical buttons. Instead, the touchscreens integrate capacitive touch buttons and sliders, allowing users to navigate general applications typically found within an automotive center console.
This includes global navigation system (GPS), car thermostat, audio controls for a radio or media player, seat controls and more. AvantCar also allows drivers to personalize their in-vehicle environment using advanced touch capabilities and LIN connectivity system to control ambient lighting.
According to Atmel Marketing Director Stephan Thaler, AvantCar successfully demonstrates the future of human machine interface (HMI) in upcoming vehicles. Indeed, next-generation automotive designs will be influenced by a wide range of trends in the consumer market such as slick and curved centerstack designs, as well as customization by appearance, color, navigation and interaction with a smartphone or tablet.
Atmel offers a number of comprehensive platforms and solutions to address the current and future requirements of a modern in-vehicle human-machine interface (HMI). However, the AvantCar Centerstack demo is the company’s first fully functional concept showcasing groundbreaking solutions within the automobile.
To be sure, AvantCar is powered entirely by Atmel technology, including maXTouch (two touchscreens), XSense (curved panel design), QTouch (touch buttons and sliders), dedicated algorithms running on Atmel touch chips and microcontrollers (proximity detection), as well as LIN-based ambient lighting control.
Let’s take a closer look at the above-mentioned technology behind the concept.
maXTouch
Atmel’s maXTouch lineup is qualified for various automotive applications, including in-vehicle touchscreens and touchpads.
maXTouch supports screens and pads from 2 inches up to 12 inches in size and is ideally suited for center stack displays as well as navigation systems, radio human-machine interfaces (HMIs) and rear seat entertainment systems. In addition, maXTouch devices provide unlimited touch identification, fast response time, precise operation and low power consumption for touch-based designs.
XSense
Atmel’s XSense touch sensors open a new world of possibilities for touch-based products. A highly flexible film, XSense sensors can be used on curved surfaces and edges, facilitating the design of futuristic in-vehicle touchscreens and surfaces. XSense also enables the replacement of mechanical switches or rotary knobs on a curved centerstack surface with more reliable, moisture-resistant, touch-based buttons.
QTouch
Atmel’s QTouch library makes it easy for developers to embed capacitive-touch button, slider, wheel and proximity functionality in microcontroller applications.
The library facilitates the design of touch panels in the centerstack, as well as overhead or door panels. Plus, the royalty-free QTouch Library offers several files for each device, while supporting a number of touch channels – enabling both flexibility and efficiency in touch applications. In addition, Atmel provides a number of fixed-function products from 1 to 48 channels, with some of them qualified for the automotive market.
Automotive-qualified mcirocontrollers
New automotive functions require local intelligence and control, which can be optimized by the use of small, powerful microcontrollers.
In conjunction with a corresponding touch library, Atmel’s automotive-qualified MCUs are ideal for driving new and futuristic capacitive-based control panels in current and future cars.
LIN-based ambient lighting control
We offer LIN-related products at all integration levels – from simple transceiver ICs to complex system basis chips (SBC), along with system-in-package solutions such as the Atmel AVR ATA664251 for ambient lighting control.
Earlier this week, Atmel expanded its popular maXTouch T lineup of touchscreen controllers with the mXT640T, mXT336T and mXT224T. The new devices offer a comprehensive set of features, supporting next-gen mobile devices such as smartphones, phablets and mid-size tablets with touchscreens ranging from 3.2”-8.3.”
In covering the launch, Steve Bush of Electronics Weekly (EW) noted that there are now 20 DACs taking data off 20 sense wires followed by parallel processing, compared with 18 wires multiplexed onto fewer ADCs before. In addition, having moved to a 130nm process for the new chips, there was also room for Atmel to replace the 8-bit processor with a 32-bit AVR core.
“It is a lot more power efficient and has a lot more processing capability for a lot more intelligence: large finger detection, palm rejection, water rejection and charger noise immunity,” Atmel product marketing manager Tony Xia told Electronics Weekly. “And it can work with xSense, our scheme to use fine copper wires to replace ITO.”
As well as replacing increasingly hard to get ITO (indium tim oxide), xSense reduces sense line impedance, allowing the wire to be charged and read faster. Simply put, with more sense cycles in a fixed time, statistical processing can reduce the effective signal-to-noise ratio.
“Charger noise rejection is actually a combination of better numerical processing, actively hopping the read frequency away from the charger band, and analogue processing,” Xia explained.
In terms of interacting with water and gloves, Xia confirmed there “is no impairment” for condensation with a finger.
“[Similarly, with] wet hands from washing, there is no problem; up to a few drops, there is no false touch,” he stated. “[Plus], a lot of smartphones today won’t work with gloves at all. [In contrast], ours worked well with 20 different gloves we were presented with on one customer visit.”
Lastly, said Xia, passive styluses no longer need to be conductive and in electrical contact with the user.
“We tried it with a cheap mechanical pencil with an 0.5mm lead and it worked,” he added.
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