Augmented Reality Head-Up-Display for Advanced Driver Assistance System: A Driving Simulation Study

Research and technological advance in the field of Augmented Reality (AR) is growing rapidly (Mas, 2011). One of the new application domains is the automobile industry, linked to the necessary men machine aspects of Advanced Driving Assistance Systems (ADAS). Relevant road traffic as well as useful navigation or path planning information may be displayed using partially or totally the windshield surface thanks to these emerging technologies. However, the way road traffic, signs or vehicle information is displayed impacts strongly driver’s attention with increased mental workload and safety concerns. Research in perceptual and human factors assessment is needed for relevant and correct display of this information for maximal road traffic safety as well as optimal driver comfort. At Renault, research is carried out in a number of automotive AR domains: the used information type and visual grammar, visual perception for the displayed information (depth, localization), and real time mixed reality, that is matching virtual and real environment. The main goal of this presented experiment was to study whether head movement impacts AR depth perception and thus modifying displayed image quality and decreasing driver performance. For this purpose, a driving simulator experiment, carried out in the CAVE Immersive Integration Platform (P2I) Driving Simulator, we analyzed: driver head movements during different realistic situations, preferences scale in each specific situation, and thus with and without head tracked conditions. Primary data shows a strong preference for the tracked system condition and the statistical scale factor was very significant.