Faurecia Eyes Interiors for Autonomous Vehicles

Faurecia SA’s xWorks innovation center in Holland, Mich., is working on several different approaches to making tomorrow's vehicle interiors more flexible and comfortable to support new driver-assist systems and ride-sharing services.

Opened in 2006, the Holland facility evaluates the impact of next-generation technologies on the look, feel and function of interiors. Faurecia also has xWorks centers in Munich, Shanghai and Silicon Valley.

One of the challenges of autonomous vehicles is to make interiors more “intuitive and predictive,” says Matt Benson, who leads advanced innovation programs for the Holland team. He tells Reuters that Faurecia aims to help manage the handoff of responsibilities between the vehicle and the driver by developing an "active wellness" seat that uses biometric sensors and advanced analytics to measure an occupant's drowsiness, stress level and other potential hindrances to alert driving.

Other projects include expanding emerging voice- and gesture-activation technologies beyond infotainment systems to the control of lighting and other vehicle systems. The increasing number of ride-sharing services also will make it more important to develop new ways to help keep interiors clean, Benson adds.