Mitigating Driver's Distraction: Automotive Head-Up Display and Gesture Recognition System

Dashboards in modern vehicular interiors, house multiple infotainment systems that allow a continuous flow of nonessential information maintaining driver connectivity. This results in distraction of the driver's attention from the primary task of driving, leading to a higher probability of collisions. This paper presents a novel head-up display (HUD) system which utilizes gesture recognition for direct manipulation of the visual interface. The HUD is evaluated in contrast to a typical head-down display system by 20 users in a high-fidelity virtual reality (VR) driving simulator. The preliminary results from a rear collision simulation scenario indicate a reduction in collision occurrences of 45% with the use of HUD. This paper presents the overall system design challenges and user evaluation results.