A system design for automotive augmented reality using stereo night vision

The use of Head-Up Displays (HUD) in automobiles to visualize various types of driving information on the windshield has rapidly increased in recent years. However, these HUDs display the graphics on only a specific area of the windshield. This paper introduces a new generation of automotive augmented reality systems for driver assistance at night which detects the 3D positions of potential collision partners as well as the driver's eyes to display the warning information at the exact position according to driver's viewing direction on the full-windshield (FWD). Furthermore, a generic method for unified calibration of various components of this system is proposed. The introduced concepts are validated on a prototype with an external stereo night vision system for obstacle detection, an interior mono night vision system for eye tracking as well as different projection units.