soon 3D projections on windshields showing hidden dangers

There’s something new in car safety. The next generation of “head-up displays” will give us superpowers. We will be able to see through objects that hide danger.

The so-called “head-up display” technology comes from aeronautics. It is a transparent projection of important information in the driver’s field of vision, directly on the windshield. This allows him to read this information, while keeping his eyes on the road.

Now, researchers from the universities of Cambridge, Oxford and University College London are seeking to go further. By combining augmented reality, the technology could make it possible to see everything that is hidden. For example, a pedestrian or a traffic sign hidden by a truck, or a car hidden on a bend. When you realize it at the last moment. surprise can lead to panic and bad reactions. With this new type of head-up display, researchers want to show potential dangers “in the form of high-resolution three-dimensional holograms, directly in the driver’s field of vision, in real time.”

In the future we may all have x-ray vision like Superman. All hidden objects will be displayed directly in our field of vision: the pedestrian right where he is hidden by the truck and the car arriving, hidden by the mountainside.

A dynamic 3D laser scanner

The system uses pulsed light which, through its reflection, makes it possible to calculate the distance of objects, a bit like parking aids which use ultrasound. Thanks to the work of engineers at the University of Cambridge in England, the information thus collected, a layered point cloud, includes up to 400,000 data points and is transformed into holograms. The fairly sophisticated projection system gives the impression that the images are floating behind the windshield.

On the most recent high-end cars, you can already have an overview, but the system can only display GPS information, directly in the field of vision, to designate, for example, which exit to take on a roundabout. point.

Now the goal is to collect as much data as possible in a cloud, so that it is accessible to all drivers. A bit like navigation applications that provide real-time traffic information, it will be about being “dynamic” and to be able “adapt to changing conditions, as hazards or obstacles move down the street“.

Sort

Among the thousands of things that are scanned, it will nevertheless be necessary to sort them out. The system plans to do this fromux manners. First, depending on the object: it will recognize and favor cars, pedestrians, bicycles. Then, depending on the distance: anything more than 10 meters away will be ignored.