Have you ever heard of the phrase “augmented reality”? If not, let me explain a bit about what it is. In a nutshell, augmented reality refers to the practice of having a “live” view of the world with some computer-generated imagery or content overlaid on top of it. Another way of describing augmented reality is as follows; If you own a smartphone and you use the camera app on it, you will see the frame ahead of you with some text and buttons overlaid on top of it through your smartphone’s screen.

In today’s blog post, I explore some of today (and tomorrow’s) automotive technologies that will let motorists benefit from augmented reality in one way, or another, with the goal of making them better drivers.

HUD (Head Up Display)

You’ve probably seen HUDs in things like movies, computer games and during the course of your work; some airplanes have HUD systems as standard. The way that HUDs work in cars is that an image is projected onto the windscreen, just like the one shown in the photograph above.

Drivers can customise the information that is being displayed, such as current speed, range (the distance you can cover before you run out of fuel), and even turn directions for satellite navigation.

One of the reasons why people exceed speed limits, without even realising they are doing so, is because they have their eyes on the road ahead, but they aren’t occasionally checking their dashboard to see what speed they are doing!

HUDs can help to eliminate such problems because you can essentially benefit from the best of both worlds – keeping your eyes on the road AND knowing how fast you are going.

Maintenance

A problem that is of growing concern for the motor industry is that some motorists don’t know how to perform basic maintenance on their cars.

I can pretty much guarantee that you will know someone that drives a car and doesn’t have a clue how to check their engine’s oil level, or even correctly identify where the oil filler cap and dipstick are located!

The obvious downside to not knowing how to maintain a car is that you could potentially end up with a costly repair bill for a problem that could have been easily avoided – had the right checks been made on a regular basis!

I was listening with interest when Mark from Listers.co.uk recently told me how German car manufacturer Audi are working on an augmented reality tablet app for car owners.

The app, which is still being developed, is aimed at helping car owners identify the various components on their car’s engine, as well as locating the potential causes of any faults.

Traffic

At the moment, we can only rely on our satellite navigation devices to guide us around any traffic hotspots when we are driving.

In the future, we will be able to locate the sources or causes of traffic ahead of us using cameras and technological wizardry that can see in front of the cars ahead of us!