1
Drivers Distraction –
To what Extent can the Work of ITU
FG CarCom contribute to reduced drivers
distraction?
H. W. Gierlich
HEAD acoustcics GmbH
Chair of ITU-T Focus Group CarCom
The Fully Networked Car
Geneva, 2-3 March 2011
Drivers Distraction – An Analysis*
o Physical
Physical//manual distraction
• Manual operation of devices
o Visual
Vi
l distraction
di t ti
• Watching information other than road
o Auditory distraction
• Focusing on auditory events not related to
the driving task
o Cognitive distraction
• Occupied by non driving related tasks
* See also NHTSA
The Fully Networked Car
Geneva, 2-3 March 2011
1
Technology Based Distraction in Cars
o Car entertainment systems
o Navigation systems
o Phones for speech communication
o Car information systems
o Text messanging systems
o „Texting while driving“
driving“
o
:
The Fully Networked Car
Geneva, 2-3 March 2011
To be avoided
o In general all activities distracting from
the driving task
task,, esp
esp.:
.:
• Visual cues which require different
focus than road
• Non intuitive manual operation of the
car
g the human auditory
y system
y
by
y
• Loading
distracting cues
• Unnatural and low quality dialogs and
communications
The Fully Networked Car
Geneva, 2-3 March 2011
2
5
The driving task
mostly occupied:
visual system
not involved:
talking
mainly involved:
hands and legs
involved:
auditory system
=> Auditory Channel and Speech “available”
The Fully Networked Car
Geneva, 2-3 March 2011
Speech Based Services in Cars
o Speech prompts
o Speech dialog systems
o Speech communication services
The Fully Networked Car
Geneva, 2-3 March 2011
3
Speech Based Services in Cars
7
o The main speech applications:
• Speech recognition systems
• Speech dialog systems
• Text to speech systems
• Speech enhancement for
communication systems
• Hands
Hands--free communication
• Enhanced inin-car communication
systems between passengers
The Fully Networked Car
Geneva, 2-3 March 2011
Communicational Quality – Drivers Distraction
8
Superior
Communication
Quality -> Reduced
Drivers Distraction
Perfekt Intelligibility
Intelligibility,,
High Speech
Naturalness in the
Car
Perfekt Intelligibility
Intelligibility,,
High Speech
Naturalness at the
Far End
Seamless Interaction
-> Low Delay,
Perfekt Double Talk
Performance
The Fully Networked Car
Geneva, 2-3 March 2011
4
Hands-Free in Cars
9
o Why handshands-free in
cars??
cars
• Reduce phsyical
distraction (dialing,
dialing,
holding the phone…)
phone…)
• Reduce visual
distraction (watching
di l , keyboard
display,
display
k b
d …))
The Fully Networked Car
Geneva, 2-3 March 2011
Superior Sound Quality & Intelligibility in the Car
10
o Wideband services in mobile networks available soon
->
o Enabling wideband telephony (100 Hz- 8 kHz) in cars
• Fullband
• Narrow band (car)
• Wideband (car)
o Efficient use of the high quality audio systems in
cars:
•
•
•
•
Getting superior sound quality
Increasing speech intelligibility
Increasing naturalness of a conversation
Reduce drivers distraction due to poor speech sound quality
The Fully Networked Car
Geneva, 2-3 March 2011
5
Superior Sound Quality & Intelligibility for the Far End 11
Narrowband
Wideband
(.wav)
(.wav)
Car
(
(.wav)
)
(.wav)
(.wav)
Preamp.
A/D
GSM
BT
MOST-
Hands-Free Algorithm
BT
chip
Mobile
Phone
GSM
Network
BUS
D/A
Amp.
The Fully Networked Car
Geneva, 2-3 March 2011
Influence of Delay on Drivers Distraction
12
o Best case car to car:
~200 ms
o Worst case car to car (including network delay):
>>400 ms
For superior conversational quality: delay < ~150 ms
(from the users perspective)
Terminal A
The Fully Networked Car
Geneva, 2-3 March 2011
Network
0 ms
150 ms(.wav)
500 ms (.wav)
Terminal B
(.wav)
6
Consequences of Poor Quality Hands-Free
Implementation
o Reduced speech quality – near end and far end
o Poor sound quality
o Corrupted
C
t d speech
h due
d to
t low
l
quality
lit noise
i
cancelling and low quality echo cancellation
o Insufficient conversational performance due to
high transmission delay
o Poor double talk performance
->
High cognitive distraction due to poor
technical performance
The Fully Networked Car
Geneva, 2-3 March 2011
ITU-T Standards Contributing to Reduced Drivers
Distraction
14
ITU--T standards for Hands
ITU
Hands--Free Communication:
• ITUITU-T P.1100 for narrowband handshands-free
hands-free
• ITUITU-T P.1110 for wideband hands-
ITU--T standards work in FG CarCOM
ITU
CarCOM::
• New work on subsystem requirements for Hands
Hands--Free
Systems in Cars
ITU--T standards ffor Dialog
ITU
g Systems:
y
• P.851: Subj. evaluation of dialog systems
• Suppl. 24 to P. Rec.: Parameters describing the
interaction with spoken dialog systems
The Fully Networked Car
Geneva, 2-3 March 2011
7
Conclusions
15
o Speech technologies may help to reduce drivers
distraction if properly implemented
o ITU is
i an excellent
ll t forum
f
for
f speech
h related
l t d
technologies and their standardization
o FG CarCOM is actively working on advanced
standards for hands
hands--free implementations and
subsystems, more:
http://www.itu.int/ITU--T/focusgroups/carcom/
http://www.itu.int/ITU
o A new ITU Focus group on Drivers Distraction is
starting soon!
The Fully Networked Car
Geneva, 2-3 March 2011
The Role of HEAD acoustics
16
o Providing expertise for testing and
optimization of all speech technologies used
in cars
o Providing test systems for speech
applications to the car industry, suppliers,
algorithm developers and chipset
manufacturers
o Supporting standardization since 20 years
based on the expertise and basic research at
HEAD acoustics
The Fully Networked Car
Geneva, 2-3 March 2011
8