The impact of different AR-HUD virtual warning interfaces on the takeover performance and visual characteristics of autonomous vehicles

Abstract

Objective

The objective of this study was to determine the different effects of the arrow-pointing augmented reality head-up display (AR-HUD) interface, virtual shadow AR-HUD interface, and non-AR-HUD interface on autonomous vehicle takeover efficiency and driver eye movement characteristics in different driving scenarios.

Methods

Thirty-six participants were selected to carry out a simulated driving experiment, and the eye movement index and takeover time were analyzed.

Results

The arrow pointing AR-HUD interface and the virtual shadow AR-HUD interface could effectively reduce the driver's visual distraction, improve the efficiency of obtaining visual information, reduce the number of times the driver's eyes leave the road, and improve the efficiency of the takeover compared with the non-AR-HUD interface, but there was no significant difference in eye movement indexes between the arrow pointing AR-HUD interface and the more eye-catching virtual shadow AR-HUD interface. When specific scenarios were considered, it was found that in the scenario of emergency braking of the vehicle in front, the arrow pointing AR-HUD interface and the virtual shadow AR-HUD interface had more advantages in takeover efficiency than the non-AR-HUD interface. However, in the scenarios of a rear vehicle overtaking the vehicle ahead and non-motor vehicles running red lights, there was no significant difference in takeover efficiency. For the non-motor vehicle invading the line, emergency U-turn of the vehicle in front, and pedestrian crossing scenarios, the virtual shadow AR-HUD interface had the highest takeover efficiency.

Conclusions

These research results can help improve the active safety of autonomous vehicle AR-HUD interfaces.

Keywords:

• AR-HUD
• autonomous vehicle
• virtual shadow interface
• takeover performance
• eye movement characteristics

Acknowledgments

We thank LetPub (www.letpub.com) for its linguistic assistance during the preparation of this manuscript.

Disclosure statement

We declare that we have no financial and personal relationships with other people or organizations that can inappropriately influence our work, there is no professional or other personal interest of any nature or kind in any product, service and/or company that could be construed as influencing the position presented in, or the review of the manuscript.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant number 52175253); MOE Layout Foundation of Humanities and Social Sciences (grant number 19YJA760094); General project of Sichuan Applied Psychology Research Center (grant number CSXL-212A03); General project of Sichuan multicultural research center (grant number DYWH2122); and Sichuan key research base of philosophy and Social Sciences - National Park Research Center (grant number GJGY2021-YB006).