A left-turn driving aid using projected oncoming vehicle paths with augmented reality

  • Authors:
  • Cuong Tran;Karlin Bark;Victor Ng-Thow-Hing

  • Affiliations:
  • Honda Research Institute, Mountain view, CA;Honda Research Institute, Mountain view, CA;Honda Research Institute, Mountain view, CA

  • Venue:
  • Proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Automotive User Interfaces and Interactive Vehicular Applications
  • Year:
  • 2013

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Abstract

Making left turns across oncoming traffic without a protected left-turn signal is a significant safety concern at intersections. In a left turn situation, the driver typically does not have the right of way and must determine when to initiate the turn maneuver safely. It has been reported that a driver's inability to correctly judge the velocity and time gap of the oncoming vehicles is a major cause of left turn crashes. Although the position and velocity of surrounding vehicles is available using camera and laser based vehicle detection and tracking, methods on how to effectively communicate such information to help the driver have been relatively under-explored. In this paper, we describe a left turn aid that displays a 3 second projected path of the oncoming vehicle in the driver's environment with a 3D Head-Up Display (3D-HUD). Utilizing the abilities of our 3D-HUD to show the projected path in Augmented Reality (AR) could help increase driver intuition and alleviate visual distraction as compared to other possible non-AR solutions. Through an iterative process utilizing early user feedback, the design of the left turn aid was refined to interfere less with the driver view and be more effective. A pilot study has been designed for a driving simulation environment and can be used to evaluate the potential of the proposed AR left turn aid in helping the driver be more cautious or efficient when turning left.