Countless drivers have gotten away with murder by telling a cop the magic words, “I just didn’t see [that pedestrian/cyclist/wheelchair user] coming.” But if a new augmented reality windshield technology works as designed, they might not have that excuse for much longer.
At last week’s 2021 Consumer Electronics Show, technology giant Panasonic unveiled its new and improved “artificial intelligence-enhanced head-up display” that senses whether the driver is speeding, swerving, or approaching a “roadway hazard” like a human being on a bike. But perhaps more importantly, the sensors that power the display also sense whether the driver is aware that he or she is endangering others — and if not, they project an unmissable visual warning directly onto the windshield where the driver should be looking, accompanied by a vibration or auditory alert.
Panasonic says the system’s ultra-advanced 3-D radar cameras take in more of the roadway than its competitors, and can even sense things that human drivers either can’t see or frequently miss, such as a person walking across a road without streetlights, or a kid darting into one of an SUV’s massive blind spots. And again, those same cameras are also watching the driver herself, and dynamically adjusting the car’s alerts based on her eye position.
Put another way: if a driver is checking himself out in the rear view mirror and a kid chases a soccer ball into the street in front his car, the alert system will bleat extra loud and flash a warning directly into the motorist’s field of vision to give him an alert to stop. But if a driver is doing the right thing and giving the roadway his full and undivided attention, the system will give him a gentler warning — a shift that the designers of the system say could convince drivers to actually use such advanced features, as well as keeping them from getting quickly desensitized to life-saving safety alerts.
“My wife and I have a back-up camera on our car, and it screams at us pretty much every time we try to get out of the garage,” said Andrew Poliak, chief technology officer for Panasonic Automotive. “A lot of drivers are so inundated with all these non-contextual warnings from their ‘smart’ vehicles — all these bells and chimes and beeps — that they don’t always really hear them. …We need to make sure we build systems that people do not turn off. ”