AR HUD enables vehicles to communicate more information than a traditional dashboard. For instance, the system could indicate how the car interprets the environment, senses dangers, plans routes, communicates with other technologies and triggers ADAS.
There are three types of HUDs. The standard models, currently available, can project dashboard information in front of a windshield or in the driver’s field of view. As a result, people gain useful knowledge about the road and vehicle conditions without shifting their eyes from traffic.
In the future, advanced AR HUD will project complex graphics that correspond to objects in the real world. For instance, on a foggy night, when the car’s thermal sensors detect an animal or human, they could highlight their presence to the driver. This way, even if a human eye can’t see the person through the fog, the driver can still react.
The common building blocks of all of these display systems are:
Simple display systems could consist a series of static icons or graphics on a windshield. More complex display systems will display contextual animations to the driver. Finally, full AR display systems will integrate and adapt with the driver’s environment.
As ADAS systems take more and more control over the car, a HUD can increase drivers’ understanding of these systems. As humans start to notice that they need to take over the wheel less often, they will start to gain confidence in self-driving cars and the technologies that enable them.
The challenge is that AR HUDs will be difficult — or potentially dangerous — to design, test and validate in the real-world while there is a human-in-the-loop. As a result, virtual prototyping and development will play a key part in reducing this technology’s time to market.
Traditional HUD development focuses on producing a clear image that doesn’t distract the driver. This means that the design must take into consideration its integration into the car and positioning relative to the driver.
It isn’t easy to predict what optical effects could pop-up during the design cycle. Additionally, building physical prototypes could get costly and push development late in the car’s design cycle.
Therefore, engineers can use Ansys SPEOS to virtually address optical challenges of these displays. Using this method, defects that could be prevented early in development include:
Adding AR to the display makes it more challenging to test and validate. The system needs to be tested dynamically to ensure it properly interacts with the environment. For instance, engineers need to ensure that it registers the surrounding traffic elements and quickly displays relevant information based on these inputs. As a result, the user experience (UX) and user interface (UI) of these systems have all of the optical challenges of a classic display with the added challenges of lag.
Therefore, the AR system needs to be tested on the road, which means that it will encounter all of the validation complexities of designing ADAS and AV systems. Namely, it’s hard to control physical environments safely and practically. For instance, if the system is tested on the road, it may not experience all of the scenarios that could trigger potential defects.
The answer is for engineers to simulate the traffic and driving scenarios so they can assess the AR HUD in all perceivable scenarios, variables and edge cases without risking the safety of test drivers or people on the roads.
Engineers will notice other benefits from testing their display systems using simulation. For instance, it enables them to take the UX and UI into consideration early in development.
The display designs will often be constrained by the development of the car’s windshield and dashboard. Therefore, by inputting these geometries into a virtual reality (VR), engineers can assess how these constraints affect the look and feel of the system. As the geometries change throughout development, it doesn’t take engineers long to assess how they affect the display.
Using simulation, engineers get an early sense of how the HUD:
——Source:ansys.com
First International Computer
