General Motors Co. scientists are working on an enhanced vision system building off current head-up display technology that could greatly improve safety, especially in the area of distracted or inattentive driving.
It is unlikely the technology will make it into production anytime before 2017. The system uses expensive night vision, navigation and camera sensors rarely found outside research and development labs.
But when it does arrive, drivers will see better in low-visibility conditions and keep their eyes on the road more often.
According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Admin., distracted and inattentive driving last year led to nearly 6,000 fatal crashes, or 16% of all motor-vehicle deaths, and more than 500,000 injuries.
Tom Seder, group lab manager-GM research and development, says the auto maker's next-generation head-up display could make a difference by putting important information, such as vehicle speed, lane position and even images of animals or pedestrians alongside the road, onto the surface of the windshield.
Head-up systems with object detection are on the market in some luxury vehicles, but their usefulness is questionable because the information is cramped into a smaller screen on the windshield. Other systems on today's cars use a screen incorporated into the center stack.
GM's project takes advantage of the entire windshield and eliminates glances away from the roadway by keeping a driver's vision level at all times.
“We want to augment the real world,” Seder says during a recent sneak peek of the technology at GM's human-machine interface lab in Warren, MI.
Seder compares the technology to the broadcast of a football game, with the first-down marker painted on the screen without covering the action on the field.
As such, the GM technology will briefly identify an object in, or near, the roadway. If the technology senses the vehicle is moving faster than the posted speed limit, lasers might flash a circle around a speed warning sign along the roadway.
In low-visibility fog, lasers could paint a line down the windshield to illustrate the shoulder of the roadway.
Seder says the technology could help older drivers because it can detect objects outside their narrowed peripheral vision. But, he adds, “We don't want to distract. You see all of our demonstrations are subtle, not persistent.
“It will draw your eye out, and then go away,” says Seder, whom GM recruited away from aerospace-supplier Rockwell Collins Inc. to take the advanced technology from passenger planes to vehicles.
Comparatively, he says the technology is more difficult to adapt to vehicles than jets because pilots have the advantage of seeing longer distances without peripheral interference.
In a car, for instance, the driver's head could be in a different position at any given moment, making it difficult for the cameras to track his eye.
And while pilots take advantage of the technology today — Seder says Alaska Air Group Inc. flights use it most because they often land in foggy conditions — it would be too expensive for vehicles.
“Lots of core technology must still be worked out, so I'd say 2016 or 2017 at the earliest. That's my wish. The key is, we don't want the system to pay its way onto the car,” Seder adds, hoping pieces of it will start “hitching a ride” with other coming safety technologies.
The all-new Opel Insignia launched by GM in Europe late last year already has a piece of Seder's system installed that brightens roadside signs under low-light conditions.
GM was first to market with current head-up technology in 1988.
The system is available on the GMC Acadia, Chevrolet Corvette, Buick LaCrosse and Cadillac STS.
