Daimler’s Mercedes-Benz continues to trickle out information on the upcoming EQS top-end electric sedan. Just before CES 2021, it revealed a little more of the Mercedes-EQ-branded car in the form of a radically designed interior user interface called the MBUX (Mercedes-Benz User Experience) Hyperscreen.
The large, curved unit for the all-electric upper-class model stretches almost the entire width from the left to right A-pillars. With software capable of learning, the display and operating concept adapts to its user and makes personalized suggestions for numerous infotainment, comfort, and vehicle functions.
Thanks to a “Zero Layer” design approach, the user does not have to scroll through submenus or give voice commands. The most important applications are offered in a situational/contextual way in the top-level view, so numerous operating steps are eliminated for the EQS driver.
Unveiled in 2018 in the current A-Class, there are now more than 1.8 million Mercedes-Benz passenger cars equipped with MBUX on the roads worldwide. A few months ago, a second-generation debuted in the new S-Class. The MBUX Hyperscreen will be an option on the new EQS.
“With MBUX, our goal was to create the most desirable automotive infotainment system,” said Gorden Wagener, Chief Design Officer Daimler Group. “We have transferred the bipolarity of our design philosophy Sensual Purity to MBUX; that is, on the one hand, the sensual beauty and on the other the ‘wow effect’ of the uniquely intuitive operation. And at the EQS as a representative of Progressive Luxury, we were able to be a little more modern, bolder, and more polarizing.”
“The MBUX Hyperscreen is both the brain and nervous system of the car,” said Sajjad Khan, Member of the Board of Management of Mercedes-Benz AG and CTO. “The MBUX Hyperscreen continually gets to know the customer better and delivers a tailored, personalized infotainment and operating offering before the occupant even has to click or scroll anywhere.”
The MBUX Hyperscreen consists of three displays and physical side air vents. It is surrounded by a continuous plastic frame painted in a three-layer process. Integrated ambient lighting behind the unit makes it appear to float.
The classic cockpit display with two circular instruments has been reinterpreted with a digital laser sword in a glass lens. OLED technology is used in central and passenger displays. All the graphics are styled in a new blue/orange color scheme throughout. For the EV mode display, important functions of the electric drive, such as boost or recuperation, along with “g forces,” are visualized by a disc-shaped object that moves between limits.
“We call the g-force element the EQ ‘puck’—or flying saucer,” said Ola Källenius, Chairman of the Board of Management of Mercedes-Benz AG. “This key information is easy to understand and appealing to look at.”
The passenger display operating area has up to seven profiles for customized content. Entertainment functions are only available during operation where it is legal. If the passenger seat is not occupied, the screen becomes a digital display of animated stars in a Mercedes-Benz pattern.
Supported by artificial intelligence, the system is engineered to proactively display functions at the right time for the user. Context-sensitive awareness is constantly optimized by changes in the surroundings and user behavior. The so-called zero-layer provides the user at the top level of the MBUX information architecture with dynamic, aggregated content from the entire system and related services.
“All the functions and features—like charging, entertainment, phone, navigation, social media, connectivity, massage, and so on—are clearly visible and available, fully connected, and adapted to one another—as well as to the user,” said Vera Schmidt, Head of Mercedes-Benz Advanced Digital Design. “It’s part of the Internet of Things and combines super-computing power with artificial intelligence to create a totally unique user experience. Our goal was to create a UI that gives our customers direct intelligent access to all the functions they need in any given situation—in other words, a customer-centric user interface.”
For the first MBUX generation, most of the use cases fall in the navigation, radio/media, and telephony categories, so the navigation application is always on the center screen. Over 20 further functions—from the active massage program through the birthday reminder, to the suggestion for the to-do list—in Magic Modules on the zero-layer.
With the MBUX Hyperscreen, several displays appear to merge seamlessly, resulting in an impressive 1410 mm (55.5 in) wide and curved screen of 2432-cm² (377-in²) area. The large glass display cover is curved three-dimensionally in the molding process at temperatures of about 650°C (1200°F). The curved glass consists of particularly scratch-resistant aluminum silicate. Two cover-plate coatings reduce reflections and make cleaning easier.
There are 12 actuators beneath the touchscreen for haptic feedback; if a finger touches certain points, it triggers a vibration in the cover plate. A multifunction camera and a light sensor adjust screen brightness to the ambient conditions.
Like the MBUX system recently unveiled in the new Mercedes-Benz S-Class, this extended-screen system runs on high-performance, energy-efficient Nvidia GPUs for AI processing and sharp graphics. The deep neural networks powering the system process datasets such as vehicle position, cabin temperature, and time of day to prioritize certain features—like entertainment or points of interest recommendations—while always keeping navigation at the center of the display.
Using the Nvidia technology-enabled Mercedes-Benz engineers to consolidate components into one AI platform—with three separate screens under one glass surface—to simplify the architecture while creating more space to add new features. Tech specs of the unit include 8 CPU cores, 24-GB RAM, and 46.4 GB/s RAM memory bandwidth.
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