Automotive

Volkswagen re-thinks external car lighting in the transition to autonomy

Volkswagen re-thinks external car lighting in the transition to autonomy
Indicator projections can harmlessly mark out space in an area you're planning to move into
Indicator projections can harmlessly mark out space in an area you're planning to move into
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30,000 pixels of projection ability: Volkswagen's micro-pixel HD LED headlights
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30,000 pixels of projection ability: Volkswagen's micro-pixel HD LED headlights
External projections show how far out your door will swing
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External projections show how far out your door will swing
Volkswagen's new "Center of Lighting Excellence"
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Volkswagen's new "Center of Lighting Excellence"
Forward path projections could help both drivers approaching each other in low-light, narrow country road situations
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Forward path projections could help both drivers approaching each other in low-light, narrow country road situations
Display panels can warn following drivers of emergencies
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Display panels can warn following drivers of emergencies
Forward path projections can show exactly how much room you're leaving for obstacles
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Forward path projections can show exactly how much room you're leaving for obstacles
Yes, the car has seen you: autonomous cars can't make eye contact with pedestrians or other road users, so they'll need new ways to signal things
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Yes, the car has seen you: autonomous cars can't make eye contact with pedestrians or other road users, so they'll need new ways to signal things
For some reason VW has declined to explain, the roof of this car lights up.
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For some reason VW has declined to explain, the roof of this car lights up.
Indicator projections can harmlessly mark out space in an area you're planning to move into
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Indicator projections can harmlessly mark out space in an area you're planning to move into
Blind spot projections make it very clear where you can and can't be seen by a human driver
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Blind spot projections make it very clear where you can and can't be seen by a human driver
Reversing projections can show pedestrians exactly where they should and shouldn't stand if they don't want to be run over
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Reversing projections can show pedestrians exactly where they should and shouldn't stand if they don't want to be run over
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Self-driving cars can't make eye contact to signal their intentions, so Volkswagen is testing several systems that turn a car into an interactive information display to project information onto the road for drivers and display interactive information to other road users.

The thinking is that as the driving duties eventually transition away from humans into the hands of cameras, sensors and algorithms, car lighting will come to serve a different purpose, more about signaling information to other drivers and pedestrians than simply letting a human driver see better in the dark.

As such, the company is designing, prototyping and testing some odd ideas for external lighting. Some of these might make their way onto production vehicles fairly soon; one, for example, projects a pair of red warning lines onto the road when a car is reversing, letting pedestrians know where the danger zone is and presumably eliminating the problem of backing out of a high-fenced driveway into the path of a cyclist on the footpath.

Reversing projections can show pedestrians exactly where they should and shouldn't stand if they don't want to be run over
Reversing projections can show pedestrians exactly where they should and shouldn't stand if they don't want to be run over

Another projects shapes on the road showing where a human driver's blind spot is, making it clear where's a safe spot to be seen. Another extends the indicators with bright orange arrows on the road that extend into the space you're planning to move toward.

"Optical Lane Assist" paints the road ahead with lines showing the width and trajectory of your car, bending as the steering wheel turns, to show exactly how much room you're leaving for roadworks, for example, or to give you an idea of which gaps you can fit through. They would also give oncoming cars on narrow country roads a clear idea of how much road space they've got to use, a little like those Xfire lights that cyclists can use to create their own bike lane. This is achieved using a HD micro-pixel headlight design that has up to 30,000 different light points to work with at varying intensities.

Forward path projections could help both drivers approaching each other in low-light, narrow country road situations
Forward path projections could help both drivers approaching each other in low-light, narrow country road situations

Other systems are more targeted at the transition to self-driving cars. One places large, high-definition displays on the front, back and sides of the car to communicate things to other road users, such as "yes, the car has seen you, Mr. Pedestrian" in a way that replaces the eye contact we normally rely on.

Presumably, such a system could also be set to show when an autonomous car has decided to give way, eliminating all doubt about whether you're clear to turn in front of it or not. We can imagine human drivers would enjoy the ability to send these kinds of clearly articulated messages to other road users, too, albeit of a different and less polite nature.

Yes, the car has seen you: autonomous cars can't make eye contact with pedestrians or other road users, so they'll need new ways to signal things
Yes, the car has seen you: autonomous cars can't make eye contact with pedestrians or other road users, so they'll need new ways to signal things

In order to push this sort of tech forward, Volkswagen has opened a "Center of Lighting Excellence" at its Wolfsburg plant outside Hanover in Germany, complete with a 100 x 15 x 5-meter (328 x 49 x 16-ft) light testing range big enough to test these lighting prototypes in a bunch of different simulated conditions.

Source: Volkswagen

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1 comment
1 comment
Booleanboy
I can see that projected imaging systems of this kind could be very useful in the transition between manual and and autonomous vehicles, especially for pedestrians as more almost-silent EVs appear. What needs to be developed though (maybe it already is) is an open standard by which an autonomous vehicles can communicate with others close by.
Turning out of a side road with obscured vision (lots of those in the rural UK) onto a main route would be much safer if the vehicle could 'see' anything approaching and even negotiate an opportunity to join the flow of traffic. Similarly on motorways, a group of vehicles communicating and cooperating to optimise traffic flow would make journeys smoother and safer.