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Companies file patents for ideas all the time, lots of which by no means see the sunshine of day. In plenty of circumstances, these dead-end proposals depend on applied sciences and ideas that aren’t absolutely fleshed out but, or just don’t exist. Nonetheless, the advantages are often apparent — you don’t want some great benefits of a self-healing windshield defined to you, for instance.
Typically, although, an organization stakes its declare to an concept that leaves you questioning not solely how, however why. Like one among Common Motors’ newest patents, for a steering wheel that may develop and shrink and even change its texture to go well with the driving force’s choice.
This patent, unearthed final week by GM Authority, was filed in December of 2020 and granted earlier this month. The rationale expressed within the abstract is that an adaptive steering wheel can greatest go well with a spread of distinctive driving situations. GM has envisioned a system to comprehend this, utilizing liquid- or gas-filled bladders. From the somewhat dry, technical clarification within the patent application:
It’s an object of the current disclosure to supply a steering wheel for a car comprising: i) a hub tailored to be mounted on a steering column of a car; ii) a rim coupled to the hub; iii) a rim materials masking not less than part of the rim; iv) not less than one bladder disposed between the rim and the rim materials; v) a fluid pump configured to inflate and to deflate the not less than one bladder; and vi) a management module coupled to not less than one car sensor and configured to regulate the operation of the fluid pump.
The appliance additionally raises the concept of a system that may adapt to a “driver state or driver type,” probably measured by sensors that may detect “hand measurement, hand location, grip power, galvanic pores and skin response, coronary heart charge, and physique temperature.”
Definitely, there are conditions the place some individuals would possibly favor a smaller or bigger rim. For spirited driving on again roads, the previous would possibly come in useful. And if it might develop for the boring freeway a part of the journey, that’d be neat. The malleability of the wheel’s floor is probably the most attention-grabbing half to me, personally, as a result of I’ve a love-hate relationship with some upholsteries or finishes, like Alcantara. Certain — it seems nice and, initially, feels good to the contact, however the materials makes my palms clammy.
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But is any of this really necessary? Would it really make driving all that easier or more enjoyable? I realize I’m preaching to the choir here, and our little enthusiast community is pre-disposed to spurn tech for tech’s sake — the sort of electronic overreach that struggles to justify itself, that seems to only exist to give corporations new, expensive, failure-prone things to sell. On the other hand, I imagine there could be more specific accessibility-related cases where someone might benefit from a steering wheel that changes its size, shape and texture to accommodate an individual’s needs.
I’m curious what you all think. If anything, I’m surprised ideas like these are gestating somewhere in GM’s headquarters, at a time when automakers are regularly fantasizing in regards to the loss of life of the steering wheel and, usually, bodily modes of management altogether.
Now if someone might simply design a nice steering wheel that doesn’t whiff out of the window whereas I’m driving, that will be a life-saver. It’s a good idea, and I stand by it.
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