The Vehicle Displays and Interfaces Conference held in Detroit in early September featured three keynotes from Lucid Motors, Envisics and Harman. Below is a summary.
Tim Smeeton of Envisics gave a keynote titled: AR Waveguide and Hologram. The company is developing AR-HUDs based on lasers and spatial light modulators to create a holographic image. These are not full-volume holographic images but two-plane holographic images with the far plane delivering ADAS functionality, like alerts or navigation cues, with the near plane offering conventional cockpit data like speed, speed limit, miles to destinations, etc.
Smeeton noted that for AR-HUDs you want to get a field-of-view that is in the 10 x 4 or 12 x 5-degree range. But to get there using conventional LCD + free-form mirror designs, the volume is 10 to 15 liters – a big volume for car makers to incorporate behind the steering wheel. Envisics is now offering their Generation 2 holographic HUD using a free-form mirror in the GM Lyriq and Vistiq. These offer dual depths at 2.5 and 10 m.
But Smeeton then revealed their next generation device that will feature a reflective waveguide and eliminate the free-form mirror. This will offer 2D or 3D images at multiple depths (cluster at 3m with AR at 6 to 100 m). The operation is not unlike AR glasses that use a reflective, non diffractive pupil expander.
He then addressed the three known challenges to using phase-only holograms in an AR-HUD. The first is realizing real-time computation of the holographic images. This is accomplished with their proprietary algorithms and a low-power ASIC. The algorithm can even compensate for any distortions in the optical path to deliver a sharp image to the eye.
The holographic diffraction pattern must then be delivered to three LCOS-based spatial light modulators that are illuminated with red, green and blue laser light. These modulators have now been optimized for the rugged automotive environment using proprietary materials. Finally, the lasers have also been automotive qualified with multiple de-speckling techniques employed to enable a clean image.
Finally, Smeeton showed how their holographic technology can enable AR-HUDs in package volumes that are much less than can be obtained with conventional LCD + free-form mirror designs. This should help open up the market for integration in mid-tier automobiles down the road.
Khader Hussain from Harman International, which is a Samsung company, gave a keynote titled: AI at the Wheel: AI-Powered Displays Shaping the Future of Mobility. He started his talk by noting that displays are no longer passive – the in-cabin experience will be shaped by intelligent screens powered by AI. While many factors are driving this vision forward, barriers remain.
Hussain then described a nice display taxonomy for the next generation of automotive displays. Harman, with backing from Samsung Displays, can supply many of these displays and is thought to be developing others. Harman can then add the rest of the hardware and software stack to offer a full cockpit solution.
Orchestrating lots of information over these displays will be a challenge, however. Any solution needs to keep the driver’s attention where it belongs, provide information without redundancy and offer a smart, simple and refreshing user interface.
To accomplish these goals, Hussain then introduced Harman’s Agentic AI engine. This will be based upon the Luna Agentic engine introduce by Samsung at CES 2025. Luna is represented by a small graphic avatar that can be skinned a number of different ways to provide a visual interface and emotional connection with the vehicle. Luna will provide an AI-driven in-cabin experience but will also integrate with the entire vehicle ecosystem. It will be the brain for the in-cabin experience providing context-aware orchestration, multi-occupant intelligence, phone-car-home continuity, visual enhancements, privacy, monitoring, safety and a brandable persona.
If all this sounds like a lot, it is. But the vision is mostly likely correct – it will just take time to get there.
Lucid Motors, based in Newark, California, is focused on electric vehicles. Janus Yuan, Product Design Manager and Richard Chiang, Sr, Staff Hardware Engineer gave the keynote presentation titled: Beyond the Screen: Scalable HMI Design for Multiple Vehicle Display Configurations. The company has two EVs today: Lucid Air and Lucid Gravity.
The glass cockpit display in the Lucid Air consists of three edge-lit LCD panels (6.1”, 13.99” and 12.74”) with two different curvatures of 800mm and 2000mm. One of the challenges they faced was controlling reflections from the window onto the display surface. They described a louvre-type film that they place between the backlight and LCD to solve this problem.
The Lucid Gravity is a 3-seat SUV that use a 33.7” P-OLED glass cockpit display, also with two curvatures, plus a 12.6 P-OLED pilot panel display.
But as they expand their lineup with a new midsize coming, they need a smart approach to displaying information on displays with different configurations and aspect ratios. They then described their UX 2.0 solution which basically takes a regional approach to breaking up the display area. That means a block for audio information might display wider on the Gravity and more vertical on the Air pilot displays, for example. It also facilitates the incorporation of information in other languages.
The new midsize may also offer an AR-HUD to provide ADAS functions and navigation cues. The challenge with AR-HUDs is to build trust in their functionality to be able to move to ADAS levels 3 and 4.
