Int J Interact Des Manuf (2018) 12:199–214
https://doi.org/10.1007/s12008-016-0350-3
TECHNICAL PAPER
Research topics and implementation trends on automotive
head-up display systems
J. Alejandro Betancur1 · Jesús Villa-Espinal2 · Gilberto Osorio-Gómez2 ·
Sergio Cuéllar3 · Daniel Suárez1
Received: 17 August 2016 / Accepted: 9 September 2016 / Published online: 22 September 2016
© Springer-Verlag France 2016
Abstract For about 5 years, production of automobiles
equipped with head-up display (HUD) systems has continu-
ously grown and this trend will remain for at least three years
more from 2014 [7,19]. Therefore, looking for clarifying
how to orientate future efforts in developing these systems,
a systematic analysis approach has been implemented for
identifying best design practises, common characteristics,
gaps, implementation trends and research topics on automo-
tive HUD systems. The proposed approach is conducted on
two areas, firstly exploring the current scientific literature
to find the most relevant research topics and understanding
how these are evolving. Secondly, a competitive intelligence
analysis was conducted compiling patents related to auto-
motive HUD systems. This analysis was specially oriented
towards determining, currently and in the near future, basic
product design implementation trends in automotive HUD
systems. Finally, the results obtained from both scientific and
technological points of view were compared and commented,
B J. Alejandro Betancur
j-betancur@javeriana.edu.co
Jesús Villa-Espinal
jvillae@eafit.edu.co
Gilberto Osorio-Gómez
gosoriog@eafit.edu.co
Sergio Cuéllar
scuellar@javeriana.edu.co
Daniel Suárez
d-suarez@javeriana.edu.co
1 Department of Industrial Engineering, Pontificia Universidad
Javeriana, Bogotá, Colombia
2 Design Engineering Research Group (GRID),
Universidad EAFIT, Medellín, Colombia
3 Innovation Office, Pontificia Universidad Javeriana,
Bogotá, Colombia
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looking for determining common, converging or diverging,
evolution parameters in automotive HUD systems. In this
way, the results exposed the distraction as an outstanding
research topic for these systems, becoming even more cru-
cial if they are mixed with augmented reality projections,
advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) or infotainment
systems.
Keywords Head-up display · Human-machine interface ·
Product architecture · Bibliometrics · Patent activity ·
Academic activity
1 Introduction
To define an industrial research project considering only
opinion of experts is not enough to guarantee its success,
since they cannot answer quantitatively all requirements of
an academic research group or of a research and development
department. Instead, it could be better if experts’ knowledge
is focused on finding information about specific requirements
of a customer, in order to solve all possible questions with
precise data. According to this, authors propose to study the
evolution of automotive HUD systems, from scientific and
technological points of view, looking for identifying main
research topics and product implementation trends that could
be useful for further design and development of these sys-
tems.
In a general manner, a HUD system is proposed as any
transparent display that projects visual information into the
drivers forward-looking visual field [13]. But more specif-
ically, it could be also defined as a mean for projecting
information directly into a human’s visual field, and its func-
tional principle is based on optical rules, where an image is
projected onto a glass window and is partially reflected [1].
123
200
Fig. 1 Examples of commercial HUD applications (Adapted). a Texas
instrument. b BMW
Therefore, the HUD systems in automobiles allow the driver
to be focused mainly on the road while driving, as shown
by some commercial applications of Texas Instruments and
BMW in Fig. 1.
Anyway, it is not clear if the information included in auto-
motive HUD systems and all issues related to its visualisation
are taking into account design guidelines about the field of the
human machine interface (HMI). Such design information
about HUD systems in automobiles is not often presented in
literature, and related commercial industries do not disclose
their design processes.
In this way, looking for obtaining more specific informa-
tion about the projected information and product architecture
(see Fig. 2). From authors’ point of view, the interactive
design is related to the integration of different actors’ opin-
ions and technical knowledge during the design process; in
this way, the proposed approach allows to consider and eval-
Fig. 2 Some product
Architectures in automotive
HUD systems. a Isolated
combiner for automotive HUD
systems. b Windshield as
combiner for automotive HUD
systems
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Int J Interact Des Manuf (2018) 12:199–214
uate technical and scientific information about the design and
implementation of automotive HUD systems, derived from
different and reliable sources. Besides, results obtained from
this approach could be used not only for this type of auto-
motive systems but also for other enterprise areas in order
to make design decisions, based on both design and market
issues [10,11].
Next section describes the HUD system in automobiles
and its potentialities. Section 3 presents the research objec-
tives and the proposed identification approach with its results.
Finally, some conclusions and further research are presented
in Sect. 4.
2 Background knowledge
Active safety systems in automobiles have been a special
research topic for about four decades, and currently they
have become one of the mainstays in automotive engineer-
ing [7,19]. These safety systems aim at preserving the driver
and passenger integrity during imminent hazard situations,
and according to their activation instant these can be clas-
sified mainly in two phases: hazard prevention and hazard
mitigation. Now, as a part of the active safety systems, the
ADAS stand out in the hazard prevention phase; specifically
the HUD systems, which through some visual stimuli could
reduce the time required by the driver to accomplish the haz-
ard detection and avoidance [4], as it is presented in Fig. 3.
Int J Interact Des Manuf (2018) 12:199–214 201

Fig. 3 HUD as an active safety device

Nevertheless, this issue is still matter of discussion and unfamiliar HUD system, should he/she use it? In such cases,
explains why the technical guidelines for the HUD systems does the HUD system really represent a driving assistance?
are constantly being revised. The answer for both questions would be “probably not”, if
Besides, some research studies suggest that this is a head- clear indications for projecting driving information in the
down society, which does not help the driver to keep his/her HUD system are not proposed.
eyes on the road and his/her hands on the wheel, or avoid
eventual distractions [7]. However, this issue can be partially
solved by presenting superimposed images in drivers’ field 3 Methodological approach
of view through a HUD system, which according to different
authors, “helps to reduce the amount of time needed for a The proposed analysis took into account data from both sci-
driver to capture the display information, while maintaining entific publications and patents in order to identify the main
the attention to important events in the outside world” [8]. research trends and technological implementations about
Thalen, et al. exposed the necessity to implement a HUD automotive HUD systems.
system for the enhancement of ADAS, enabling a visual In this way, the analysis approach considers the following
way for drivers to access critical information while keep- steps:
ing their eyes on the road [28]. In this way, if HUD systems
1. Problem understanding
correctly influence driving activities, drivers are not prone
2. Data gathering
to perform actions for which the ADAS is programmed to
3. Data plot
counteract. For example, the last generation of HUD sys-
4. Data classification
tems is based on full Augmented Reality (AR) projections
5. Data analysis
on a real scene, better known as Contact Analogue AR-HUD.
This system proposes to modify the outer environment using
3-dimensional perspective projections varying according to In addition, it is worth noticing that, in both scientific
the driving situation [21]. Such projections are configured and technological vigilance, the search parameters were
according to multiple sensing systems that together define restricted to title, abstract and references fields.
the ADAS, and according to Bosch  its full development
is expected for 2020 [29].
3.1 Problem understanding
Huang et al. analysed the psychological impact generated
on drivers using particular interfaces of automotive HUD
The problem understanding considers the definition of the
systems [15], stating the necessity to know the most impor-
research objectives. For this specific topic, two objectives
tant human factors related to these systems and looking for
were stated:
analysing the familiarity that drivers can acquire by always
using a specific HUD interface.
Additional to the above, it is necessary to understand how – To identify main current scientific topics and product
a driver, who is familiarised with the driving information of design trends, for automotive HUD systems, indicating
a specific HUD system, could experience difficulties while how these are evolving.
using another type of system. Besides, a couple of questions – To relate and compare data for both issues and concluding
arises: If a driver plans to use for a short period of time an about.

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202 Int J Interact Des Manuf (2018) 12:199–214

Table 1 Suggested keywords

Topic Sub-topic (AND) Synonym (OR) Exclusive (NOT)
for searching academic papers
about automotive HUD system “automo*” “hud” “cockp*”
“head$ “driv*” “head$ up” “*craft”
up display$” “user interface$” “ar hud” “avionic$”
“augmented reality” “box hud” “helmet”

3.2 Data gathering 55

50
3.2.1 Obtaining scientific information

Number of scientific documents

45

At this point, a scientific vigilance equation was proposed 40

looking for grouping a set of academic papers, from which 35
the main research trends were identified. In this way, a group
30
of keywords was suggested as a first step and some of them
are presented in Table 11 . 25
Afterwards, three simple academic vigilance equations 20
were defined [see Eqs. (1), (2), (3)] and applied in the
15
SCOPUS® database using the advanced search option (in
December 2015). 10

5
“head$ up display$ = 2, 349 academic paper s (1)
0
“head$ up display$ AN D “driv∗ = 841 academic 1986 1992 1998 2004 2010 2016
Publication year
paper s (2)
“head$ up display$ AN D (“driv ∗ O R “automo∗ ) Fig. 4 Scientific activity related to automotive HUD systems
= 1,009 academic paper s (3)
Table 2 Code specifications for Eq. (4)
This allowed the compilation of all academic papers until Topic Code
2014 and forecasting the data from 2015 until 2016, as it
is proposed by previous studies [3,30]. Then, Eq. (3) was Head-up display G02B27/01
chosen since its search terms were related to automobiles. Arrangement or adaptions of instruments B60K2350/00
On the other hand, the records obtained from the Thomson Mid-console B60R2011/0007
Reuters database-ISI Web of Knowledge (using the Web of Dashboard B60R2011/0005
science Core Collection option) were neglected because all
the papers were also in the SCOPUS database.
Anyway, the results obtained with Eq. (3) were widely dis- Firstly, HUD patents related to automobiles were collected,
persed. Therefore, a human filter was applied, which implies and then, other automotive displays systems as head-down
that all academic papers were examined one by one, as display (HDD), head-down instrument panel (HDIP) display
proposed by Porter et al. [22,23], in order to find more spe- and dashboard were consulted, looking for identifying if any
cific academic papers. In this way, from all the obtained of these systems was related in any way to automotive HUD
results, 466 academic papers were selected. Figure 4 presents systems.
the generation of scientific documents related to automotive With all the records, the search Eq. (4)2 was implemented
HUD systems in time. with its respective code specification presented in Table 2.
3.2.2 Obtaining patent information

Individual search results were acquired from the Thomson AI C = (G02B002701 or B60K 235000 or B60R20110007
innovation database using the international patent classifica-
or B60R20110005) (4)
tion (IPC) and the cooperative patent classification (CPC).

1 Truncation symbols: *=zero or more characters; $= zero or one char- 2 AIC is a section of Thomson Innovation database that allows an inte-
acter grated searching between the IPC and CPC.

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Int J Interact Des Manuf (2018) 12:199–214 203

300 (a)

Number of scientific publications

60

50
250
40
Number of patent families

30

200 20

10

0
150 1972 1976 1980 1984 1988 1992 1996 2000 2004 2008 2012 2016
Publicaon year
Driver interfaces and driver behaviour
100 Opcal design and product architecture
Imaging and informaon processing applicaons
(b)

Number of scientific publications

45
50 40
35
30
25
0 20
1995 1998 2001 2004 2007 2010 2013 2016
15
Priority year 10
5
Fig. 5 Patent activity related to automotive HUD systems 0
1972 1976 1980 1984 1988 1992 1996 2000 2004 2008 2012 2016
Publicaon year
Driver interfaces and driver behavior
Opcal design and product architecture
Imaging & informaon processing applicaons

Fig. 7 Scientific clusters evolution in HUD systems. a Results

obtained with the software VP. b Results manually obtained

main clusters were analysed from the semantic point of view

using the Vantage Point (VP) software® and from the inter-
pretation of the authors, in order to compare how software
and authors considerations could diverge.
Fig. 6 Graphic representation of scientific data clusters
3.3.1 Scientific graphs

This allowed to explore all possible records related to
HUD systems focused toward automotive applications, with-
out making hundreds of trials, in order to find the expected
results, and in this way, 2275 groups of patent families were
obtained. Therefore, using this equation the obtained results
were definitively more dispersed, but there was more chance
to find the required records examining each patent one by
one. Consequently, 710 groups of patent families were iden-
tified with direct relation to automotive industry.
Figure 5 presents the number of patents related to auto-
motive HUD systems in time.
Three main groups of keywords were identified from the
obtained scientific documents, and named as follows: (1)
Imaging and information processing applications, (2) driver
interfaces and driver behaviour, (3) optical design and prod-
uct architecture. These results are presented in Fig. 6.
According to the identified clusters a time-history evolu-
tion is presented in Fig. 7a using the results obtained from the
software VP and all the academic papers manually classified
in Fig. 7b.
From now on, the incoming procedures and analysis were
proposed using only the type of data included in Fig. 7b.

3.3 Data plot 3.3.2 Technological graphs

At this stage, the first step considered the generation of
graphic clusters where the different keywords of the obtained
results are represented by circles whose diameter varies
according to the number of related documents. Additionally,
a colour is assigned to every circle according to its correla-
tion with other keywords in order to identify groups. Next,
Two main groups of keywords were identified from the
obtained patents, and named as follows: (1) driver interaction
and (2) product design architectures trends. These results are
presented in Fig. 8.
According to the identified clusters, a time-history evolu-
tion is presented in Fig. 9a using the results obtained from

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204 Int J Interact Des Manuf (2018) 12:199–214

(a) 300

250

Number of patent families

200

150

100

50

0
1995 1998 2001 2004 2007 2010 2013 2016
Fig. 8 Graphic representation of technological data clusters
Priority year
Product architecture Driving interacon

the software VP and all the patents manually classified in (b) 200
Fig. 9b; confirming in this way the growing implementation 180
trends of automotive HUD systems. Anyway, it is necessary Number of patent families 160
to identify how the selected topics are evolving inside these
systems. 140

According to Fig. 9b the patent activity related to the prod- 120

uct architecture is about 60 % higher than the patent activity 100
related to driver interaction. Therefore, this technological
analysis is focused mainly on the HUD product architecture 80

characteristics, and secondly on the HUD driving interaction 60

systems and information. 40

20

0
3.4 Data classification 1991 1996 2001 2006 2011 2016
Priority year
This step defines some criteria to classify obtained results Product architecture Driving interacon
according to relevance and common topics. Outcomes of the Fig. 9 Technological clusters evolution in HUD system. a Results
classification for scientific and technological data are pre- obtained with the VP Software. b Results manually obtained
sented in Sect. 3.5 along with related comments and analysis.

In this way, in terms of forward and backward citations3 ,

the most important academic papers in every cluster were
3.4.1 Scientific classification identified applying the following restrictions:

For all of the above-mentioned clusters, the most novel aca-

– Only academic papers with publication year between
demic papers were obtained computing the mathematical
2008 and 2015 were considered.
difference between the publication date of every single paper
– An academic paper is considered more important with
and the median publication date of its references (backward
higher forward citation.
citations), so-called “article life cycle”. In this way, most
– For academic papers with the same forward citation,
novel academic papers of every cluster are those whose dif-
backward citation became the tiebreaker criteria.
ferences were below the median of their respective article life
cycle (optical design and product architecture: 5 years, imag- 3 “A backward citation is the term used for a traditional citation: it
ing & information processing applications: 6 years, driver
is the document that was published earlier, and which appears on the
interfaces and driver behaviour: 6.25 years) and above 1 year newer document’s front page. In turn, the newer document is called the
(for all the clusters). forward citation or citing document” [17].

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Int J Interact Des Manuf (2018) 12:199–214
Table 3 Considered product
architecture and driving
interaction trends about
automotive HUD systems
Table 4 Most outstanding
articles in the proposed “driver
interfaces and driver behaviour”
cluster
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Item Global HUD characteristic
1 Included/adapted/both
2 Polychromatic/monochromatic/both
3 Windshield/combiner
4 Full-windshield/covering
limited areas
5 Flat projection/augmented
reality projection/contact
analog projection
6 Mono-projection/multi-
projection/both
7 Dynamic information/static
information/both
8 Outer information/inner
information/both
9 Safety oriented/luxury
oriented/both
10 Handled by haptic
inputs/handled by voice
inputs/both
Rank Title of the article
1 Efficient information
representation method for
driver-centered AR-HUD
system [20]
2 A careful driver is one who
looks in both directions
when he passes a red light
[12]
205
Description
It considers whether the
automotive HUD system is
included by default in the
automobile, or it can be adapted
or interchangeable between
automobiles
It considers whether the projected
information is polychromatic or
monochromatic. Or also, if the
information is projected using a
mix of monochromatic and
polychromatic systems
It considers whether the
information is projected directly
on the windshield or it uses other
type of combiner
When the automotive HUD system
uses the windshield as a
combiner, it is considered
whether the image is projected
on the whole windshield, or it is
projected in a limited area
It is related to the type of
implemented projection
It describes if the image is
projected in different planes by
the optical system
It describes whether the projected
graphics are physical invariant
(static), continuously changing
(dynamic) or a mix between both
It describes what type of
information is projected and
whether it is linked to the ADAS
technologies, infotainment
systems or both
It considers whether the projected
information is oriented towards
driver safety, luxury or both
It describes the interaction between
the driver inputs and the HUD
system
Forward citations Backward
(normalised) citations
0.0533 5
0.0400 10
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206 Int J Interact Des Manuf (2018) 12:199–214

(a)
Number of scientific publication related to 35 3.4.2 Technological classification

30 Patent classification is based on implementation trends of

the Human factors keyword

automotive HUD systems according to the two groups iden-

25 tified in Sect. 3.3.2; consequently, ten characteristics were
defined in Table 3.
20 Characteristics from 1 to 6 are related to the HUD product
architecture, and characteristics from 7 to 10 are specially
15 focused towards the analysis of the driving interaction in
HUD interfaces.
10
3.5 Data analysis
5
The final step of the proposed approach started with the
0 analysis of the most important cluster for both scientific and
1988 1992 1996 2000 2004 2008 2012 2016 technological data, identified in Sect. 3.3, and considering
Publication year the results of the classification method proposed in Sect. 3.4.
Human factors _vp Human factors_cl At the end, the evolution dynamic of the obtained results is
presented.
(b) 20
Number of scientific publications related to

18
3.5.1 Driver interfaces and driver behaviour
the Driving simulator keyword

16

14
For scientific data, it was proposed an analysis about the
“driver interfaces and driver behaviour” cluster, mainly due
12 to its evolution observed in Fig. 7. Consequently, an analysis
10 focused on the concepts of the most outstanding keywords
involved in this cluster was carried out.
8
The main two documents related to this cluster were iden-
6 tified using the proposed classification approach, and the
4 obtained results are presented in Table 4 and analysed as
follows:
2
Article Rank 1. Park and Kim used different information
0 display locations and representations, in order to estimate
1988 1992 1996 2000 2004 2008 2012 2016
the situational driver awareness and his/her mental workload
Publication year
while facing safety-related road events, and evaluating the
Driving simulator _vp Driving simulator_cl
cognitive usability and visibility of drivers using a driving
Fig. 10 Keywords evolution for the driver interfaces and driver behav- simulator, an eye tracking, and a HUD system with ADAS
iour cluster. a Evolution of the keyword “human factor”. b Evolution information [20].
of the keyword “driving simulator” In this way, the main objective of this paper is focused on
research types of graphic interfaces that allow a faster driver
Forward citations were normalised, with Eq. (5), avoiding recognition; identifying how an efficient graphic information
any kind of preference for the oldest publications. representation in AR-HUD affects the driver performance,
safety, understanding and workload.
Fcn = Qca/T Qca (5) Then, according to the previous comments, there is a
strong research focus on determining the driver reaction time
where: when using different HUD interfaces either from the visual
Fcn = forward citations (normalised). or the haptic point of view. This is directly correlated with
Qca = quantity of forward citations by academic paper. the driver distraction when facing potential risk situations,
TQca = total quantity of forward citations by the year the and how the safety systems as the ADAS could modify the
academic paper was published. driver responses during these situations.

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Int J Interact Des Manuf (2018) 12:199–214 207

Table 5 Specific keywords for

the driver interfaces and driver
behaviour cluster
Cluster
Driver interfaces and
driver behaviour analysis
Main keyword Specific keyword Concept
Human factors Reaction time Time to take decisions during
driving situations [20]
Distraction Driver glances, which could not
be focused toward the frontal
driving scene [2]
Driving simulator Infotainment Information provided by the
HMI in automobiles.
However, this definition
covers all information inside
the automobile, therefore here
this concept is only applied to
the HUD
visual/audible/haptic
configurations [6]
ADAS Automotive safety systems that
enhance the driver responses
while facing potential risk
situations [28]

Table 6 Top articles of the

proposed specific keywords for
the “driver interfaces and driver
behaviour” cluster
Rank Title of the article Forward citations Backward citations
Reaction time
1 Multimodal threat cueing in 0.0422 109
simulated combat vehicle
with tactile information
switching between threat
and waypoint indication
[18]
2 The method of 3D 0.0099 11
information display for
automobile HUD [25]
Distraction
1 A novel active heads-up 0.5135 7
display for driver
assistance [9]
2 A brain-computer interface 0.0170 3
in the context of a head up
display system [5]
Infotainment
1 Sight analysis with 0.0405 131
RAMSIS cognitive: Step
II [24]
2 A careful driver is one who 0.0400 10
looks in both directions
when he passes a red light
- increased demands in
urban traffic [12]
ADAS
1 Alerting the drivers about 0.0540 3
road signs with poor
visual saliency [26]
2 A system design for 0.040 5
automotive augmented
reality using stereo night
vision [14]

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208 Int J Interact Des Manuf (2018) 12:199–214

Cumulated number of scientific

publications related to the 120
keywords: Reaction time,
Distraction, ADAS and
100
Infotainment
80
60
40
20
0 Taking into account how the “Driver interfaces and driver
1986
Reaction time_cl Distraction_cl
Fig. 11 Cumulated keyword evolution comparison
Article Rank 2. Götze et al. proposed to summarise all the
HMI requirements for automotive HUD systems, instrument
cluster systems (specially the infotainment) and accelera-
tion force pedal systems. In this way, from a qualitative
and quantitative point of view, 150 HMI requirements from
different academic sources and normative were extracted
and classified according to the above-mentioned systems.
This is very useful testing the driver responses during HUD
usage [12].
Therefore, regarding the automotive HUD systems, some
characteristic as minimum and optimal character height,
display duration of road sign shown, maximum number of
colours, luminance values, animations and warnings restric-
tions, among others are discussed. According to this paper,
there is a big interest in analysing how in-vehicle systems
are evolving to impact positively the driver safety, regard-
ing to driving interfaces. Finally, in this research it is worth
noticing how configurations of infotainment technologies are
considered as crucial for the inclusion of HUD systems in
automobiles.
3.5.2 Scientific dynamic
1996 2006 2016
behaviour” cluster is evolving, it is proposed an analysis
Publication year
focused on some of its most representative keywords.
ADAS_cl Infotainment_cl
In this way, according to Fig. 6 the most outstanding
keywords in the above-mentioned cluster are: “Human fac-
tors” and “Driving simulator”, and their evolution in time is
presented in Fig. 10, considering results obtained with the
software VP (_vp sub-index) and results manually filtered
with the authors criteria (_cl sub-index).
Then, according to Sect. 3.5.1, from the driver understand-
ing standpoint, some specific keywords were selected and
their associated concepts are indicated in Table 5.
For each specific keyword, the classification approach pro-
posed in Sect. 3.4.1 was applied in order to identify the two
most relevant articles related to them. These results are pre-
sented in Table 6. The median of the Article Life Cycles for
each keyword is: 8 years for “Reaction time”, 7 years for
“Distraction”, 7.5 years for “Infotainment” and 6.5 years for
“ADAS”.
The academic publication “A novel active heads-up dis-
play for driver assistance” [9] (forward citation = 0,5135),
of the distraction keyword, could be considered as the most
outstanding document. Additionally, considering the evolu-
tion rate across the time for each specific keyword, with the

(a) (b)
publications related to the

publications related to the

7
Reaction Time keyword

20
Number of scientific

Number of scientific

Distraction keyword

6
5 15
4
3 10
2 5
1
0 0
1992 1996 2000 2004 2008 2012 2016 1986 1992 1998 2004 2010 2016
Publication year Publication year
Reaction time_cl Reaction time_vp Distraction_cl Distraction_vp

(c) (d)
Number of scintific publications
publications related to the

12
related to the Infotainment

60
Number of scientific

10 50
ADAS keyword

8 40
keyword

6 30
4 20
2 10
0 0
1986 1992 1998 2004 2010 2016 1986 1992 1998 2004 2010 2016
Publication year Publication year
ADAS_cl ADAS_vp Infotainment_cl Infotainment_vp

Fig. 12 Evolution in time of specific Keywords in scientific data. a Reaction time. b Distraction. c ADAS. d Infotainment

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Int J Interact Des Manuf (2018) 12:199–214 209

Table 7 Implementation value for every single HUD characteristic in automotive industry
Year Characteristic 1 Value (%) Characteristic 2 Value (%) Characteristic 3 Value (%)

2010 39.47 60.53

2016 Included 44.72 Adapted 55.28
2018 43.44 56.56

2010 65.00 35.00 0.00

2016 Polychromatic 64.47 Monochromatic 16.15 Both 19.38
2018 67.22 15.01 17.77

2010 27.03 72.97

2016 Windshield 45.73 Combiner 54.27
2018 46.60 53.40

2010 0.00 100.00

2016 Full-windshield 15.94 Covering limited areas 84.06
2018 15.03 84.97

2010 90.48 4.76 4.76

2016 Flat projection 54.20 Augmented reality 35.65 Contact Analog 10.15
2018 51.22 38.51 10.27

2010 57.14 42.86 0.00

2016 Mono-projection 58.15 Multi-projection 32.12 Both 9.73
2018 60.73 30.38 8.89

2010 18.52 40.74 40.74

2016 Dynamic Information 24.26 Static Information 46.35 Both 29.40
2018 24.54 45.70 29.76

2010 38.46 38.46 23.08

2016 Outer information 24.37 Inner Information 23.93 Both 51.70
2018 23.41 22.09 54.50

2010 82.86 5.71 11.43

2016 Safety Oriented 75.86 Luxury Oriented 14.43 Both 9.71
2018 73.51 16.04 10.44

2010 66.67 16.67 16.67

2016 Handled by haptic inputs 77.17 Handled by voice inputs 18.80 Both 4.03
2018 77.64 17.50 4.86

Table 8 Proposed automotive HUD system

Item Feature Global HUD characteristics Specific HUD
characteristics

1 Type of automobile Included/adapted Adaptable to any automobile

arrangement
2 Projection color Polychromatic/monochromatic/both Polychromatic
3 Type of combiner Windshield/external combiner Windshield as a combiner

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210 Int J Interact Des Manuf (2018) 12:199–214

Table 8 continued
Item Feature Global HUD characteristics Specific HUD
characteristics

4 Length of projection Full-windshield/covering limited areas Covering limited areas

5 Type of projection Flat projection/augmented reality
projection/contact analog projection
6 Number of projection planes Mono-projection/multi-projection/both
7 Type of projection Dynamic projection/static projection/both
8 Type of projected information Outer information/inner information/both
9 Type of product orientation Safety oriented/luxury/both
10 Type of interface Handled by haptic inputs/handled by
voice inputs/both
Flat projection, but AR is taken as a future
promise
Mono projection but multi-projection systems are
rising
Static projection but dynamic projection systems
are rising
Safety oriented information is fully implemented,
but luxury information seems to be growing
Haptic inputs are broadly implemented, but voice
inputs are been implemented strongly

selection criterion of the authors, the distraction keyword is

the most relevant, as it is shown in Fig. 11.
(a) 70 The time-evolution of the number of academic papers
related to the proposed specific keywords is presented in Fig.
60 12.
Adapted Academic articles presented in Table 6 where analysed in
Number of patent families

50 order to identify important aspects related to the design and

Safety oriented test of automotive HUD systems.
40 Firstly, in these articles there are different methods for
Included measuring the driver reaction time (among other driver
30 responses) when presenting visual stimuli in his/her field
Covering limited
aread
of view. Commonly, for measuring the driver reaction time
20
Augmented
during any task identification, a button is suggested, but
reality there are studies that uses eye and pupil tracking, or even
10
neurological instances. However, the easiest way seems to
0
be asking test subjects for pressing a button when he/she
Product design characteristics sees an specific stimuli on the HUD image projection while
driving.
(b) 300
On the other hand, the quantity of information included
Number of patent families (accumulated)

in the automobiles has grown considerably, especially in the

250 last decade, in one way by the dashboard evolution (vehicle
Adapted information, infotainment, active safety supports, etc.), by
200 the enhancement and popularisation of the ADAS, but espe-
Included cially by the usage of external infotainment devices (smart
150 phones and tablets). Therefore, some questions about the cog-
Flat projection
nitive effects produced in drivers by that such a quantity of
100 information have raised, for instance: how handling an ever
Safety oriented
larger quantity of information while driving could influence
50 Covering limited negatively the driver attention?, which in-vehicle functions
areas could affect negatively the driver behaviour?, etc. In this way,
0 for automotive industries, it is strongly necessary to compre-
2010 2012 2014 2016 hend how these interface issues could negatively impact the
Priority year driving safety. According to the above, some authors pro-
Fig. 13 Product design characteristics vs. number of families of pose to analyse the drivers’ eye glance and movements while
patents, in 2016. a Number of patent families. b Number of patent performing conjointly a given in-vehicle task and a driving
families (accumulated)

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Int J Interact Des Manuf (2018) 12:199–214 211

(a) (b) (c) 25

70 25

Number of patent families

Number of patent families

Number of patent families

60
20 20
50
40 15 15

30 10 10
20
5 5
10
0 0 0
1992 1996 2000 2004 2008 2012 2016 1991 1996 2001 2006 2011 2016 1991 1996 2001 2006 2011 2016
Priority year Priority year Priority year
Adapted Included Monochromac Polichromac Both Windshield Combiner

(d) (e) (f) 30

40 35

Number of patent families

Number of patent families
Number of patent families

35 30 25
30 25
20
25
20
20 15
15
15 10
10 10
5 5
5
0 0 0
1991 1996 2001 2006 2011 2016 1991 1996 2001 2006 2011 2016 1991 1996 2001 2006 2011 2016
Priority year Priority year Priority year
Full-windshield Covering limited areas Flat projecon AR projecon CA projecon Mul-projecon Mono-projecon Both

Fig. 14 Evolution of Product Architecture in automotive HUD systems. a Adapted/included. b Monochromatic/polichromatic/both. c Wind-
shield/combiner. d Full-windshield/limited areas. e Flat/AR-HUD/CaHUD. f Multi-projection/mono-projection/both

manoeuvre. And in this way, to identify which functions of As reported by Table 7, the HUD system that seems to
an automotive HMI could produce a negative effect on the be less implemented is included by automotive enterprises
driver behaviour. Therefore, the HUD systems appear in the or original equipment manufacturers. Also, monochromatic
automotive context as one of the best performing displays for systems are less implemented for the constantly changing
interaction in a safety way with the ADAS, dashboard and automotive industries. Regarding Windshield and Multi-
infotainment devices. projection characteristics, it is important to note that these
From patents classification, ten HUD characteristics have characteristics are currently being explored from a cognitive
been identified in Table 3. Currently and in the near future and functional point of view [6], but beside their impact on
(2018), from the product architecture point of view, the the patent generation could be modest, their applications and
implementation of automotive HUD systems are mostly possibilities makes them strongly recommended for applica-
focused towards to be: adaptable to any automobile, poly- tion in automotive industries [12].
chromatic, with isolated combiners, covering limited areas, Once the evolution of the product architecture and driving
with flat-projections and mono-projections. interaction in the automotive HUD systems is clarified, it is
On the other hand, from the driver interaction point of possible to identify and propose its changes and improve-
view, the implementation of automotive HUD systems are ments. In this way, the authors propose a HUD system from
focused to be: static information, outer and inner information, an automotive commercial point of view with its functional
safety oriented and haptically oriented. characteristics presented in Table 8.
Considering the selected characteristics presented in Table
3.5.3 Product design definition 8, Fig. 13 presents the product design characteristics that
put together biggest quantity of patent families in 2016. The
According to the above, these implementation trends will “adapted” characteristic shows an outstanding current and
vary as it is shown in Table 7. This details crucial design future implementation trend.
information when defining basically any automotive HUD On the other hand, from the driver interaction point of view
system. the most included information in HUD systems is related to

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212 Int J Interact Des Manuf (2018) 12:199–214

(a) (b) (c)

25 35 60
Number of patent families

Number of patent families

Number of patent families

30 50
20
25
40
15 20
30
10 15
20
10
5 10
5
0 0 0
1991 1996 2001 2006 2011 2016 1991 1996 2001 2006 2011 2016 1991 1996 2001 2006 2011 2016
Priority year Priority year Priority year
Dynamic information Static information Both Outer information Inner information Both Safety oriented Luxury oriented Both

(d)
25
Number of patent families

20

15

10

0
1991 1996 2001 2006 2011 2016
Priority year
Handled hapically Handled by voice Both

Fig. 15 Evolution of driver interaction configurations applied to automotive HUD systems. a Dynamic/static/both. b Outer info/inner info/both.
c Safety/luxury/both. d Handled hapically/handled voice/both

collision warning systems, traffic sign recognition systems, 60

Number of patent families

and pedestrian detection systems. These were identified from 50

a trend group analysis carried out using the VP software. 40
Also, mainly from the infotainment side, the most used infor-
30
mation is related to the vehicle speed, revolutions per minute,
navigation and road information. 20
Nevertheless, there are not specific control trends for inter- 10
acting with the information projected by the automotive HUD
0
systems; therefore, the present analysis just identified some 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
of the most common interaction controls as: keypads, track- Set characteriscs
balls, switches, dimmers, touch pads, microphones, among
Fig. 16 Number of patents grouped by HUD characteristics
others.

3.5.4 Patent dynamic Fig. 14 for characteristics related to Product Architec-

ture, and in Fig. 15 for characteristics related to Driving
Then, from the previous 710 patents families, a subgroup of Interaction.
347 was classified according to the product design character- Additionally, it must be noted that most of the patents are
istics indicated in Table 3. Then, using demand forecasting not focused in just one characteristic but at least in 5 or more
theories since 2015 until 2016, the evolution of these char- of them. This behaviour is observed in Fig. 16 and supported
acteristics in automotive HUD systems is presented in by data presented in Table 10.

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Int J Interact Des Manuf (2018) 12:199–214
Table 9 Implementation trends of design characteristics in automotive HUD systems
Characteristics 2010–2016 (%)
Augmented reality 30.89
Both outer and inner information 28.62
Both polychromatic and monochromatic 19.38
Windshield 15.94
Full-windshield 15.94
Handled by haptic inputs 10.51
Both mono projection and multiprojection 9.73
Luxury oriented 8.72
Dynamic information 5.74
Static information 5.61
Table 10 Characteristics most applied on HUD system
Characteristics
Adapted
Included
Both outer and inner information
Augmented reality projection
Outer information
4 Conclusions
– The scientific analysis about automotive HUD systems
shows the current importance of researches related to
driver interfaces and driver behaviour analyses, specif-
ically to distraction, reaction time, ADAS and infotain-
ment in this respective order. On the other hand, from
the patent analysis and according to the importance of
the technological characteristics presented in Table 7,
authors identified the implementation trends of the design
characteristics in automotive HUD systems considering
data from 2010 until 2016 and forecasting data from 2016
to 2018, as it is presented in Table 9.
According to the above, from both the scientific and tech-
nological points of view, currently an interesting research
topic could be oriented towards decreasing the driving
distraction using HUD systems with AR-projections,or
implementing ADAS technologies, as proposed by Table
9.
– From the scientific and technological information gather-
ing approach, the proposed methodological approach has
been implemented by previous researches [3,22,23,30]
that use a data-mining software to extract information
about specific topics. Nevertheless, this paper was also
developed by experts with more than 10 year of expertise
in automotive HUD systems, which allow to select from
the previous approach just the information that seems to
Content courtesy of Springer Nature, terms of use apply. Rights reserved.
213
Characteristics 2016–2018 (%)
Augmented reality 2.86
Both outer and inner information 2.81
Polychromatic 2.75
Mono-projection 2.58
Luxury Oriented 1.61
Adapted 1.28
Covering limited areas 0.91
Windshield 0.87
Both handled by haptic inputs and by voice 0.83
Both safety and luxury oriented 0.73
be coherent.
% According to the above, it was possible to identify
key information about these systems, which becomes
40.0 strongly difficult to extract doing traditional information
36.0 database analysis, where only academic and/or scientific
12.0 data are considered without a context.
8.0 This is an advantage for enterprises, research institutes,
4.0 among others, that are aware about the impact automo-
tive HUD systems will have in the near future, but do not
know the current hot research and development issues.
In summary, with this proposed methodological approach,
it was possible to match the scientific and technological
points of views toward common research issues in auto-
motive HUD systems, using the experience of the authors
as the main information filter.
– There is a big quantity of studies focused on analysing
how the automotive HUD market is growing, looking for
proposing a market forecast [16,27]. Therefore, it is clear
that in the near future this technology will be broadly
implemented in automotive industry, but the new ques-
tion would be how to implement them.
This can be inferred by looking at the technological road
maps about HUD systems in automotive industries, but
there are not precise data about or estimated values about
how to implement them. In this sense, this paper proposes
a way to take into account not the market but the HUD
product architecture, in order to define quantitative and
qualitative design guidelines for designing or selecting
an automotive HUD system. This kind of analysis could
be implemented as a business evaluation methodology, in
order to specify exactly how much a specific automotive
HUD system is at the forefront. In the same way, extrap-
olating the data obtained from the proposed analysis, it
could be possible to identify in how much time a current
HUD system could be outdated.
– The implementation of several characteristics when
designing an automotive HUD system is a very clear indi-
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