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Hyundai Motor Group (HMG) has revealed a new technology that assists hearing-impaired drivers.
Hearing-impaired drivers are dependent mainly on their sight and touch senses. HMG created a way of communication for hearing impaired people that incorporates both internal and external sounds through tactile and visual means, thereby expanding freedom of mobility to all drivers regardless of their physical limitations.
The technology utilizes artificial intelligence to analyze the external sound patterns and employs two separate driving assist systems that work together simultaneously – the Audio-Visual Conversion (AVC) and Audio-Tactile Conversion (ATC), to help hearing-impaired drivers who have an acute, highly developed sense of touch and attuned visual capabilities.
The AVC allows for safer driving, by enabling communication with the external environment through visual portrayals of sound patterns, such as warning sounds of emergency vehicles, as pictograms on the head-up display (HUD). The steering wheel is also equipped with multi-colored LEDs which indicate navigational information while driving.
The ATC transfers the sound data into vibrations through the steering wheel, notifying the driver of information about external environments such as distance from obstacles.
