Panasonic’s augmented reality display aims to change the way drivers see roads
Panasonic confirmed off its Augmented Reality HUD at 2021’s all-online Consumer Electronics Show. In an illustration video, Panasonic’s system laid blue navigation strains, indicating the path the driver ought to go, over the precise highway. A yellow image identified a bicyclist to the facet of the highway and flashing alerts warned of vehicles that have been getting too shut.
In the a long time since they made the bounce from fighter jets to vehicles, head-up shows, or HUDs, have change into a generally obtainable possibility on all types of automobiles. These shows undertaking data, akin to velocity and navigation directions, onto a automobile’s windshield or a transparent plastic display screen in entrance of it so the driver would not have to look down at the gauges or at a display screen in the automobile.
The numbers and symbols often seem as in the event that they’re floating someplace simply above the automobile’s hood. Some corporations have discovered how to make them lay over actual objects — together with different vehicles, pedestrians and bicyclists — in the actual world, making a form of augmented reality expertise for the driver. It’s the subsequent massive step for head up shows, and programs like this have just lately begun hitting the market. Mercedes could have the same system on its new S-class sedan, and Volkswagen will embrace the same system on the new ID.4 electrical SUV in some markets.
This type of real-world alignment is tough to do as a result of it requires understanding precisely the place all the options of the highway outdoors are, second by second, but in addition exactly the place the driver’s eyes are always. It’s vital to know each, as a result of in any other case the graphics cannot be lined up correctly.
To do that, Panasonic’s AR HUD makes use of eye-tracking know-how to carefully comply with the driver’s eyes. A vibration management system helps compensate for bumps and different vibrations, and retains the pictures in the windshield regular from the driver’s perspective. Imaging radar scans the highway forward throughout no less than three lanes of visitors, in accordance to Panasonic.
If the driver is utilizing the navigation system, the head-up display will present a line on the highway to point out the right route. The system can even spotlight pale lane strains that is likely to be onerous to see. If the car will get too shut to a automobile forward, a warning image can flash at the again of the different automobile to warn the driver to enable more room.
The 2021 Cadillac Escalade has a considerably comparable characteristic, but it surely’s not projected in the windshield. In the Escalade, a video digicam captures a picture of the highway forward which will get displayed on a display screen in entrance of the driver. Navigation cues and different data are then included into that picture. That’s easier to do, technically, as a result of it would not require the complicated alignment a heads-up system does.
Panasonic is making its system obtainable to varied automakers to allow them to supply it as an possibility on their automobiles.
