Evolution of a full-windshield HUD designed for current VANET communication standards

Aspects of contemporary automotive research on infotainment and safety notifications have enjoyed mainstream adoption by vehicle manufacturers either as dashboard or Head-Up Display (HUD) visual cues. Such notifications, going beyond the traditional fuel/speedometer indicators, have proven popular with drivers and exhibit great safety-enhancing potential. In previous work, we proposed a HUD design which showed substantial promise towards aiding driver reactions under low visibility conditions. In this paper, we present an evolution of the original design which aims to improve on it both in terms of efficiency and cost. Alongside the new HUD design we present a newly developed medium-fidelity driving simulator that can make use of real road-traffic traces and improve on realism by considering wireless communication limitations. We use the new simulator to evaluate our HUD design and show that it compares favourably with our past efforts.