The next big technological advancement for high-end luxury cars – and eventually all road vehicles – is the augmented reality head up display (HUD), and we'll see it in production cars from 2017.
Instead of using a small area of the windscreen or a plastic screen to display basic information, as is the case with cars from the Mazda3 to the Audi A8, augmented reality HUDs will use most of the windscreen to overlay important graphics, photos, maps and other data to improve safety.
German auto parts developer Continental says it has signed a deal with an unnamed customer for the supply of augmented reality HUDs from 2017; the customer believed to be a European luxury brand, possibly Jaguar Land Rover.
Apart from displaying more info right before the driver's eyes, the advanced HUDs will also be used to further integrate car data, and possibly even autonomous driving systems.
Continental's chief of instrumentation and human-machine interface (HMI) division, Eelco Spoelder, told Automotive News Europe that HUDs will make a big leap forward in the next few years.
He said the systems will improve safety by ensuring drivers spend more time focussed on the road, and not switching their field of view between the road and the car's instrument panel.
"It allows you to have your eyes constantly on the road. If you have to look up from the instrument panel to the road, you need a second to change eye focus. You can travel blindly for quite a few meters," he said.
The new augmented reality HUD technology from Continental will comprise the traditional compact projection display for road speed etc, while a larger, secondary projection will display a 'virtual' display around 7.5 metres (25 feet) in front of the car. The company says that concise navigation data can be overlayed on the high resolution colour projections.
Further details such as highlighting other road users, collision alerts and lane-departure warnings can also be integrated into the augmented reality systems.
Indian-owned British car Jaguar Land Rover has already shown two examples of its augmented reality systems in the form of Land Rover with a see-through bonnet, designed for off-roading and a Jaguar with its Smart Assistant that displays everything from appointments to seat massage functions on the windscreen.
However there are problems still to be solved with high-tech HUDs. For instance they will require a special windscreen to operate, which will ensure the expansive displays will only be offered initially on luxury vehicles.
Continental's augmented reality HUD system also requires a large 13 litre box that contains all the electronics and optics, and space is always at a premium on modern day cars. Nevertheless, Spoelder says the company will "drive down the cost and make it a potential mass-market product".
"The question is how much space carmakers will allow [for the optics box]. That will be the decisive factor."
There's also the issue of bright sunlight affecting the clarity of HUDs, but these issues are unlikely to stop the popularity of the technology.
Other auto components suppliers are developing augmented reality HUDs, including Denso.
But before things get really advanced expect to see more 'combiner' HUDs, which are currently the go-to systems of smaller vehicles like the Mazda3 and Peugeot 3008. They use a small plastic screen to display crucial info and are much cheaper and smaller.
Car manufacturers now have more choice in terms of HUD design and supplier, with Panasonic, Delphi, Bosch and others currently peddling such systems, and as more companies jump on the HUD band-wagon, the technology will be as common as air conditioning.