Abstract

Several car manufacturers such as BMW in their i5 and Tesla in its Model 3 have already integrated video games into series models of their cars. With autonomous vehicles on the horizon, in-car entertainment features become increasingly relevant to the automotive industry. In this thesis, I will investigate how the car’s hardware can be used as an additional feedback device to enhance the gaming experience, primarily focusing on the i7’s active suspension as a haptic feedback device. Next to this primary goal, I investigated topics such as using games for educational purposes and how Augmented Reality (AR) can be used to create value for automotive customers. To do that, I created several games integrating interior light and active suspension feedback, one using Augmented Reality. Next to that I also developed two other AR proof of concept applications. For the educational content in some of the applications created, I used gamification to improve the learning experience. After implementation, a user study was conducted showing a selection of the created applications to 32 participants. Next to custom questions, the Player Experience Inventory questionnaire benchmarked the survey’s result’s performance against existing games. The user study showed that participants liked the idea of using the i7 active suspension as a haptic feedback device, but there was still some way to go to create an experience good enough to ship it to the customer. The study showed that the active suspension did not impact the immersion negatively. Depending on interpretation, it was hinted that the active suspension could improve immersion. This must be investigated more thoroughly with a comparative study in future

Results/Implementation/Project Description

Conclusion

[ PDF (optional) ] 

[ Slides Kickoff/Final (optional)]