Enhancing Safety Features of Advanced Driver Assistance System Warnings by Using Head-Up Displays

ADAS (Advanced Driver Assistance Systems) is a growing technology in automotive industry, intended to provide safety and comfort to the passengers with the help of variety of sensors like radar, camera, LIDAR etc. Though ADAS improved safety of passengers comparing to conventional non-ADAS vehicles, still it has some grey areas for safety enhancement and easy assistance to drivers. BSW (Blind Spot Warning) and LCA (Lane Change Assist) are ADAS function which assists the driver for lane changing. BSW alerts the driver about the vehicles which are in blind zone in adjacent lanes and LCA alerts the driver about approaching vehicles at a high velocity in adjacent lanes. In current ADAS systems, BSW and LCA alerts are given as optical and acoustic warnings which is placed in vehicle side mirrors. During lane change the driver must see the side mirrors to take a decision. Due to this, there is a reaction time for taking a decision since driver must divert attention from windshield to side mirrors and back to windshield & this reaction time can be one of the causes of accident in many cases. So, there is a scope to improve safety by eliminating this driver reaction time. This paper presents an idea about using heads-up display for BSW and LCA warnings to eliminate this driver reaction time. The Head-Up Display (HUD) gives warning information in the windshield itself instead of side mirrors in the existing system so the driver need not to look at side mirrors during lane change. This driver interface feature can be implemented to other ADAS function warnings also to enhance the safety performance. This paper also covers ADAS vehicle and HUD mounting architecture along with different types of HUD’s information.