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Antolin and UltraSense Systems are advancing their collaboration with a next-generation Smart Surface HMI designed for a future global vehicle platform. The project aims to integrate digital controls directly into automotive interior surfaces, reducing reliance on conventional mechanical switches.
The system combines touch and force sensing with visual and haptic feedback, allowing a surface to respond to a user’s input while providing the tactile confirmation normally associated with a physical button. Decorative lighting can also be incorporated into the interface, opening new possibilities for combining controls and interior design.
UltraSense will provide the underlying electronics, including its solid-state user-interface technology, sensing architecture, firmware and algorithms. Antolin will handle integration, engineering and industrialization, bringing the technology closer to deployment in production vehicles.
A key feature is UltraSense’s sensor-fusion architecture. The technology integrates sensing, signal processing, lighting control and system intelligence within a semiconductor-based solution and is designed to recognize interactions through different automotive materials and surface designs.
For automakers, this could provide considerably more freedom when designing the digital cockpit. Instead of organizing the cabin around separate buttons and control modules, functions can potentially be embedded into door panels, center consoles, dashboards and other decorative surfaces, creating thinner and more configurable interfaces.
The development also reflects a wider evolution of automotive HMI: the interface is increasingly extending beyond the touchscreen. As vehicle functions become software-controlled, smart surfaces can provide another interaction layer alongside displays, voice assistants and other digital cockpit technologies.
For the automotive app ecosystem, that evolution could ultimately create new ways for software to interact with the physical cabin. Instead of every function living on a central display, contextual controls could increasingly appear directly where occupants need them — turning the interior itself into part of the vehicle’s digital interface.
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