Automotive Displays

Abstract

In modern vehicles, we are faced with a rapidly increasing flood of information to the driver coming from their own vehicle and neighboring vehicles, from the road, and from telecommunication equipment. In addition to established information systems, advanced driver assistance, collision mitigation, and collision avoidance systems are being integrated more and more into the vehicles. The information coming from all those systems must be presented to the driver with appropriate displays taking into consideration the ergonomic requirements of the human-machine interface (HMI). The key task of the HMI is to present the information in an optimum display position with little distraction and quick readability.

Keeping to the former standard practice, i.e., providing each new information component with its own display and an individual keypad, inevitably would have led to an overloaded cockpit, similar to that in aircraft, in which displays and indicators have to be relocated to unfavorable read-off positions and input elements have to be relocated to areas not easy to reach. Current and future vehicle information systems provide this huge amount of information mainly in three information centers: a more or less reconfigurable instrument cluster and a head-up display, both with driver relevant information and a center console display with driver and passenger relevant information. For these systems an appropriate bundling of the information, in conjunction with menu-prompted operating techniques, is essential both technically and ergonomically.