Augmented Reality Windshield Displays and Their Potential to Enhance User Experience in Automated Driving

Abstract

Increasing vehicle automation presents challenges as drivers of highly automated vehicles become more disengaged from the primary driving task. However, even with fully automated driving, there will still be activities that require interfaces for vehicle-passenger interactions. Windshield displays are a technology with a promising potential for automated driving, as they are able to provide large content areas supporting drivers in non-driving related activities. However, it is still unknown how potential drivers or passengers would use these displays. This work addresses user preferences for windshield displays in automated driving. Participants of a user study (N=63) were presented two levels of automation (conditional and full), and could freely choose preferred positions, content types, as well as size, transparency levels and importance levels of content windows using a simulated “ideal” windshield display. We visualized the results in form of heatmap data which show that user preferences differ with respect to the level of automation, age, gender, or environment aspects. These insights can help designers of interiors and in-vehicle applications to provide a rich user experience in highly automated vehicles.

Towards Personalized 3D Augmented Reality Windshield Displays in the Context of Automated Driving

“…Therefore, we gave participants the opportunity to modify all WSD parameters (e.g., size, distance, transparency etc. ), and received similar results to Riegler et al (2019e) in terms of increased utilization of the WSD space. More than two third of participants chose the multi-window WSD setup stating "the ability to have all information at a glance" and "using the vehicle as a personal command center for many tasks."…”

“…The "ability to engage in playful activities or work collaboration with other passengers" was also mentioned. Since SAE L5 AVs require no human driving interactions, subjects updated their WSD preferences by making the work and entertainment windows larger as well as moving them to more user-centric locations, while warning and vehicle-related information windows were either removed or placed in peripheral areas of the WSD, consistent with prior work by Riegler et al (2019e). Additionally, distance and tilt parameters were only slightly changed, however, windows were made more opaque for "increased visibility and immersion of the WSD content".…”

“…Therefore, Häuslschmid et al suggest using a one-fits-all layout because the information uptake was found to be higher for these layouts, but with the disadvantage that individual user preferences are not sufficiently considered. In the context of automated driving, Riegler et al (2018), Riegler et al (2019e) investigated windshield display content, window sizes, and window transparency for SAE L3 and L5 AVs. Their experiment aimed at investigating driver-passengers' requirements and preferences for WSDs based on different content types, such as warnings, vehicle-related information, work-, entertainment-, and social media content, among others.…”

A Comprehensive Review of Computing Paradigms, Enabling Computation Offloading and Task Execution in Vehicular Networks

“…In vehicles, augmented reality can be used to enhance the vision and to embed the warnings for safety and comfort using the third party remote servers like a cloud [153]- [155]. This application can also be used to provide driving assistance to those who are colorblind [156].These applications increase the awareness of drivers about the environment to enhance safety [157]. In VANETs, augmented reality can be used to warn drivers for hidden dangers, help drivers who are colorblind, and to provide more information about their surroundings.…”

Increasing User Experience and Trust in Automated Vehicles via an Ambient Light Display

“…In the first version, the participants reacted faster, and the driver did not have to scan the scene to find the highlighted object. Regarding full automation, Riegler et al [41] investigated where the information should be placed on windscreen displays for different levels of automation. They found that passengers want to use the windscreen mainly for entertainment, work-related, or social media content.…”