Toyota’s new nav, voice systems part of “connected strategy”

Toyota Motor Corporation (TMC) in Japan has announced it is developing a state-of-the-art hybridised navigation and voice recognition system.

The navigation/voice recognition project will operate through a combination of cloud-based systems and on-board computers as part of the company’s “connected strategy”.

The high-tech system will be rolled out in Japan this spring (Japan’s autumn), as part of optioned navigation systems in new vehicle models, TMC says

The hybrid functions include calculating driving routes and location searches in the cloud by “tapping into databases that combine vehicle probe data gathered from other vehicles and external data” TMC says in a statement. This will create the most efficient and optimised driving routes to provide even more accurate estimated arrival times.

The benefit is gathering traffic, mapping and infrastructure data to design the fastest real-time route with the shortest arrival time.

The system is also designed to allow “route expansion” in which users can increase the types of routes used in the navigation system, downloading directly from the cloud.

A voice recognition program has also been developed to allow cloud computing to recognise natural speech and the names of places and venues.

On-board computing will also step in to assist in responding to voice commands as required. Where previous systems required fixed phrases to be spoken to the computer, the new hybrid system uses recognition engines in both cloud and the on-board computer to analyse the intent of the speech and mediate a function.

TMC says for example, saying “noodle shop with parking” or “set air conditioner to max” are natural speech functions the new system will understand and execute.