Look at Me

Current pedestrian collision warning systems use either auditory alarms or visual symbols to inform drivers. These traditional approaches cannot tell the driver where the detected pedestrians are located, which is critical for the driver to respond appropriately. To address this problem, we introduce a new driver interface taking advantage of a volumetric head-up display (HUD). In our experimental user study, sixteen participants drove a test vehicle in a parking lot while braking for crossing pedestrians using different interface designs on the HUD. Our results showed that spatial information provided by conformal graphics on the HUD resulted in not only better driver performance but also smoother braking behavior as compared to the baseline.