Despite current issues, including cost, experts say projecting information on a windshield is a future safety must-have for drivers. Keeping your eyes on the road could get easier, thanks to advances in automotive head-up displays, or HUDs. They are becoming more capable, with color imagery depicting speed, lane location, turn direction, radio setting and other information. All of this data floats in front of the driver, at a distance that seems to be about the same as the front bumper....
The use of lasers in head-up displays received a significant boost not long ago, said Lance Evans, director of business development for automotive applications at MicroVision Inc. in Redmond, Wash. The company’s products use a milli-meter-size microelectromechanical systems laser-scanning device to create a head-up display. The advent of a direct-emitting green laser diode cut the cost of the solution considerably and made it commercially competitive, Evans said. The system paints the image point by point via a flying spot; the beholder’s persistence of vision knits the distinct points together into a picture. A key advantage of MicroVision’s approach is that the lasers produce very saturated colors, easily overcoming anything beyond the windshield. “When we put green up or we put red up or we put magenta up, it really pops over the background,” Evans said. MicroVision’s display technology is just entering the market, with the first volume product appearing this year in a system from Pioneer aimed at Japanese car buyers. Toward the end of the decade, head-up displays will be going into millions of cars annually worldwide, Evans predicts.
