New Tech Wiggles Past Nagging Reminders for Self-Steering Highway Helpers

Lane centering systems, which automatically steer a car to keep it centered in its lane of travel, are supposed to reduce the stress of long drives, but automakers must ensure drivers keep their hands on the wheel. (This is because truly hands-off systems are a different animal, and require higher driver assistance capabilities.) The cheapest, worst way to do this is to monitor small torque inputs at the wheel. But we can assure you that huge stretches of I-75 through Ohio require no such torque inputs, meaning such vehicles pester their drivers to needlessly wiggle the steering wheel about every 5 minutes just to prove they're still alive and simply there. On a long drive that prompts hundreds of hushed curses and vows never to buy another car from this brand. At CES 2025, ams Osram offered a fresh solution that satisfies the automakers' desire to monitor drivers, and the comfort of the drivers themselves.

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The Status Quo

To date, the two better, more expensive alternatives to wheel-wiggling have been capacitive touch sensing in the steering wheel rim and in-cabin cameras that can see a hand on (or off) the wheel.

With capacitive touch, a very low electrical potential is applied to the wheel rim, and your hand effectively short-circuits that potential to ground. But moisture, gloves, etc. can raise the threshold for this “shorting.” (This can be even more confounding when relying on the same capacitive touch to activate keyless unlocking on a wet door handle in the rain.) 

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Impedance Sensing

The ams Osram impedance sensing sidesteps this changing potential by sending out surface acoustic wave signal at near FM frequency (3–8MHz) and measuring the “quadrature” of the reflected wave.

Imagine a doppler-effect phase shift-type thing. (This approach is actually an alternate means or subset of capacitive sensing.) The amount of change is always the same with human contact, regardless of moisture, gloves, etc. In the door-handle sensor pictured above, the LED light bar-graph above the handle merely indicates the strength of the signal as a hand touches the handle.

When and How Much?

This technology is already deployed in Europe and will be making its way to the U.S. quite soon, at a price that is said to be slightly lower than existing capacitive systems, though slightly above the clearly ineffective torque-sensing systems for hands-on detection (HOD). It can’t come soon enough to suit us!