Voice communication module for automotive instrument panel indicators based on virtual assistant open-source solution - Mycroft AI

Abstract

This work was originated from the increasing interest in several industries to implement voice based virtual assistant solutions powered by the Natural Language Processing field of study. This work is focused on the automotive industry Human Machine Interface related products, specifically the Instrument Panel. Nowadays people are constantly using virtual assistants like Google Assistant, Alexa, Cortana or Siri on their electronic devices. Furthermore, 31% of cars have a built-in virtual assistant, for example Ford uses Alexa, Merced­es-Benz and Hyundai use Google Assistant, BMW and Nissan use Cortana, GM uses IBM Watson, Honda uses Hana and Toyota uses YUI. Apart from the proprietary solutions described earlier, there are also contemporary open-source generic solutions available on the market, such as Mycroft AI which stands out from other technologies due to ready to deploy, well documented, simple installation on a Linux PC or RPI SoC, and simple execution. This paper presents a way to use Mycroft AI as an alternative to add artificial intelligence-based voice assistance to applications in the automotive domain. The voice communication module presented here drives notifications related to three different entities: seat belt, fuel level and battery level, all of them are telltales present in any automotive Instrument Panel. Since the Mycroft AI design approach is based on Human Centered Design (HCD), the voice communication module presented here provides real user experience (UX) based design. As a conclusion, Mycroft AI demonstrates great potential as an alternative to add voice assistance to automotive industry Human Machine Interface related products. About future work, due to the fact that Mycroft AI is based on Python, there are many possibilities for connecting and expanding the voice communication module by using countless Python libraries in order to import and process any type of information, in any format or source, for example the information from communication technologies like CAN, LIN, Ethernet, MOST, GPS or any other device or technology in order to create comprehensive automotive solutions.