Plenary 2: Applications & Markets II

Automotive Head-Up Displays in the Era of Driverless Cars
Tuesday, February 13, 2018
11:10 AM - 11:35 AM

Head-up displays (HUDs) are gaining mainstream adoption in cars just as discussions and demonstrations of autonomous vehicles are gaining momentum.  These two major trends in the automotive market are seemingly at odds, but upon closer inspection one trend may in fact enable the other.  This talk will seek to address the conflicts and complements of these two new technologies as they attempt to make the roads safer for all of us.

Current standard automotive HUDs display vehicle data and information to the driver overlaid on the area right in front of the vehicle (i.e. road) as a virtual image.  Next generation automotive HUDs will display the same information and more data but overlaid dynamically and precisely on the objects in the environment in an augmented reality fashion (e.g. a target symbol on the destination/building that moves as you get closer).   Autonomous enabled vehicles will include additional illumination, sensors and cameras to map out the environment and this data/information will need to be displayed on these new Augmented Reality HUDs.  This will be driven by the fact that the average driver is still uncomfortable with the concept of a self-driving vehicle and it is believed that this display of information will help them grow more comfortable with increasing automation.  One example would be to highlight a pedestrian that the vehicle has detected and is on a trajectory that could require the car to brake to avoid a collision.  Today, a growing percentage of vehicles have some portion of autonomous function, but are still set-up ergonomically to have a normal driver.  This may transition to a largely autonomous car by ergonomics, that nonetheless can be controlled by the driver.  The future when all cars are driverless, without even the accommodation for human control, is no doubt decades from now.  In the meantime, the display, and likely the HUD, will play a critical role in the more prominent than ever man-machine interaction that are automobiles.