Patent ID: 9452678
Filing Date: 2016-09-27
CPC Classification: B60K,G06F

Claim Text:
1. An adaptive, automatically-reconfigurable, vehicle instrument display method performed within a vehicle having an instrument panel display that displays digital representations of gauges, using widgets, in lieu of physical gauges, the method comprising: continuously sensing, using at least one sensor, for a change in gripping force exerted by a driver on a steering wheel of the vehicle by a driver operating the vehicle; determining, using at least one processor in the vehicle, that the change in gripping force by the driver has occurred based upon a detecting of an increased grip force exerted on the at least one sensor within a window of time; based upon a result of the determining, automatically modifying at least one of presence, position, size and/or location of at least one widget in the instrument panel display from a current set of widgets displayed within the instrument panel display to a set of widgets representing a set of sport gauges, wherein each of the widgets has associated with it an importance value, maintained in non-transitory storage, that establishes, relative to every other widget, a widget's presence and position within the instrument panel display, wherein the change from the current set of widgets to the set of widgets representing the set of sport gauges is effected by modifying importance values of the current set of widgets and the set of widgets representing the sport gauges.