Texas Instruments
The topic of driver distraction is one that we have discussed a lot here at Ars. Whether due to the proliferation of smartphones, touch-screen infotainment systems now installed in most new cars, or if people just do not pay attention to it, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration estimates that 400,000 people were injured and 2,841 killed is due to derivative drivers in 2018.
Researchers are divided on whether the real problem is cognitive overload or that drivers simply do not have the gaze on the road ahead, and some car manufacturers and technology companies are trying to address the second issue by managing the gaze monitoring systems. But a new technology tapped by Texas Instruments at this year’s (virtual) CES could mean there is far less reason for drivers to keep their eyes off the road.
Specifically, the technology uses a small projector embedded in the dashboard of the car and a layer of holographic film laminated in the sandwich glass, which forms a windshield to direct an aircraft hologram of the instrument’s group and navigation project into the driver line. sight.
Heads-up displays have been available in cars (both high and low parts) for many years now, and at CES in 2019, Ars saw a demo of a HUD with a full windshield magnification. However, TI’s new system, which calls a holographic optical element (IP HOW) screen in the aircraft, differs subtly from current HUD technology. To begin with, as the name suggests, the display is projected in the plane of the windscreen – on the other hand, the image of a HUD in space seems to drift a few meters in front of the vehicle.
TI says that the primary advantage of the IP HOW screen is that it requires much less space than the large mirrors required by a traditional HUD. TI claims that the IP HOW screen can be supported using a small projector of less than 1 liter (0.03 cubic feet) compared to 20 liters (0.7 cubic feet) or more for a similar screen with HUD technology.
In addition, you can have much more freedom if you have to fit the IP HOW projector into a car’s dash. Since the images can be projected outside the axis, the projector does not need to be mounted directly between the driver and the windscreen. TI says it’s a great option for vehicles such as sports cars with limited space and heavily raked windscreens, as well as commercial heavy trucks with near-vertical windshields, and none of them are good candidates for current HUD technology. .
Unlike the windshield AR HUD I saw in 2019, the IP HOW screen can use RGB LEDs instead of lasers for illumination, meaning it is cheaper, more reliable and requires no active cooling. The screen is even compatible with drivers wearing polarized sunglasses.
Note that the IP is HOW screen not an extended reality show like that of Mercedes-Benz in its latest S-Class sedan. As you can see from the enclosed video above, the same information is displayed as a display of the main instrument, but there is no real-time object identification and flagging.
However, it is not quite perfect. First, the image distance to the IP HOW screen is short of the driver’s eyes to the windshield; A HUD usually has an image distance of 2.2-6.1m (7.5 to 20 feet). But the IP HOW has a similar image distance as the main instrument clusters that fit on the cars we all drive, and since it projects the exhibit at the same level as the road ahead, there should be much less accommodation time for the driver, which is a faster response time to any incidents that lie ahead.