Customers should be able to integrate seamlessly their portable audio players (e.g. iPods, USB mass storage devices) into the car cockpit just like connecting their mobile phone to the car telephone system via Bluetooth. To listen to his or her favourite songs the user simply plugs the audio player to a USB or Aux-in connector and operates it with the car’s input elements (e.g. iDrive or steering wheel buttons).

It is fairly difficult to integrate all players into the car implementation due to the variety of mobile audio players on the market, each with different hardware chips, technology and firmware versions. For this reason, it is necessary to analyze and solve potential compatibility problems to support a maximum range of audio players. Thus, the first main goal of the master thesis is to define an audio player compatibility check (APCC) to create a controllable compatibility process for present and future devices. In the end, the results will be communicated internally as well as to customers.

Parallel to the analysis of compatibility aspects and technological properties of current CE devices, future audio player functions within a car environment will be examined. For instance, possible future trends are: audio stream connection using wireless technology (e.g. Bluetooth or UWB), television via Handy (DVB-H), playing videos (i.e. rear seat entertainment) or music purchase and podcasting MP3 files. In this context, the second main goal of the master thesis is to extend existing use cases of interaction with new user interaction concepts for these future audio player functions. Finally, the new developed interaction use cases will be tested and evaluated of road traffic usability and feasibility.

People

Prof. Dr. Tom Gross, Supervisor
Dr. Günther Schatter, Supervisor
Uwe Higgen, BMW
Dr. Dieter Schafhuber, BMW
Andreas Kura, BMW
Jürgen Heichele, BMW
Sascha Koch, Master's candidate

Created by: mirko.fetter last modification: Thursday 23 of November, 2006 [13:00:16 UTC] by mirko.fetter