Bettina Leuchtenberg

Integration of night-vision and head-up display in vehicles

Night vision enhancement based on electronics is a very recent development within the field of driver assistance solutions. Night vision systems, as they are usually called, support the driver in a borderline situation of human perception in order to lower the risk of accidents. The ergonomics of displaying the vision enhanced image are one of the key issues of night vision solutions. Siemens VDO Automotive has developed two night vision technologies to functional maturity and has tested various image display locations in the cockpits of a passenger car and a commercial vehicle. This paper gives a current status of the findings so far and focuses on explaining the potential that lies in integrating night vision solution and head-up display.

An Augmented Reality Display for Conditionally Automated Driving

This paper investigates whether an Augmented Reality Head-up Display (AR-HUD) supports usability and reduces visual demand during conditionally automated driving. In a driving simulator study, 24 drivers experienced several driving scenarios while driving with conditional automation. The drivers completed one drive with a fully developed HMI designed for automated driving (AD-HMI) that presented visual information in the cluster display and included auditory and tactile output. In another drive, the same drivers were additionally supported by dynamic and static visual feedback via an AR-HUD concept. The latter was preferred by more than 80% of the sample due to the higher information content and the possibility to leave the eyes on the road. Drivers rated the AR concept to be better understandable and more useful. Eye-tracking revealed lower percentage of gazes to the instrument cluster during AR-HUD drives.