When buying a new car what do many people look for? Is it the flashiness of the car or its accessories? Actually, safety should be the first priority. With the help of a developing field of technology, safety can be increased and in later models, it should also add that flash that people so desire. What I am referring to is AR or Augmented Reality. The technology is still in its infancy. However, three companies displayed their ideas and applications of this tech at CES (Consumer Electronics Show).
The first company, Harman, shared an idea based on the screen already in many cars today. These screens normally show the cars’ speed and navigational directions. This is so the driver doesn’t have to look away from the road. Augmented Reality furthers that normal heads-up display by using GPS and sensors placed around the car to pick out objects nearby, and then relays those objects to the driver. AR can be utilized best in an urban environment: where the amount of traffic, pedestrians, and signage becomes overwhelming to the driver and the risk of an accident increases. The display would overlay speeds of other cars and tell the driver whether it would be best to slow down or speed up to avoid a crash.
Continental, the second company focuses on the projection aspect of AR. They partnered with DigiLens to develop a special projector. This is a compact project with high-resolution displays normally meant for AR glasses. Continental proposes a display that is overlaid on the windshield. This tech could be implemented as early as the next major model update of cars. Multiple environments could be scanned for by sensors. This would be useful to those who need an overlay for most situations including highways, surface streets, and rural roads.
The last company is Visteon. This company, similar to Continental, used the windshield as their setup. However, they only chose to use a color-coded system to identify objects. Red, for example, was used to indicate braking in other cars. Furthermore, they chose to develop the hardware behind the system, rather than the user-interface.
Whatever direction specific companies chose to go, it is clear that AR will be utilized in many different types of cars in the near future.
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