Embitel’s Product engineering services team has been hard at work perfecting their exciting new offering-the car HUD (head up display).
The HUD is a multimedia device projecting real-time data that’s critical for the driver in the context of concurrent driving conditions. All this information is displayed on the windshield or a combiner to mitigate driver distraction and offer safety and convenience.
Our Embedded Product Development team, the brains behind this project, helped us understand the following critical hardware modules of the car HUD system.
Freescale/NXP i.MX 6 platform
Designed for new-age smart automotive applications, i.MX 6 processors have stood the test of time.
For our Embedded Product Development team, having already delivered an Infotainment project for a Tier-I supplier (for commercial vehicles), i.MX 6 was an obvious choice for the car HUD project.
The i.MX 6 platform, based on ARM Cortex architecture, supports connectivity, real-time data delivery, digital instrumentation, audio and multi-stream video. All these are the essential ingredients required to develop car HUD and infotainment features.
Memory chip specifications
It comes with DDR3 RAM of 1GB, which is optimum for most purposes, and is expandable to 4GB.The flash memory is 8GB, expandable to 32GB, and is used for the Android OS and BSP.
Pico projector
With the help of the Texas Instruments (TI) pico projector, the RGB data from the i.MX6 chip is converted to DLP, allowing for data to be displayed at a resolution of 854×480.
Voice recognition module
This consists of an audio codec (encoder-decoder) and allows input from the mic in the form of voice commands.
It also has a speaker module for the voice output.
Gesture Control Module
The infrared (IR) camera or a gesture recognition sensor enables one of the most innovative features of the HUD: gesture recognition. A simple swipe of the hand and HUD obeys your command.
Bluetooth and WiFi modules
Connectivity of other devices (mobile devices, V2X, V2V) with the HUD is facilitated by Bluetooth and Wifi modules.
With Bluetooth, you can connect your cellphone to the HUD, to access media files for playing music, make/receive phone calls and view messages.
With the voice recognition and gesture control features, the driver enjoys a state-of-the-art touchless experience!
The Wifi module is used to connect with the two blind spot cameras-on the right and left side-and the reverse camera that provide a view of the surroundings and obstructions in the while steering the vehicle.
GSM and GPS modules
The HUD also houses a GSM module for a SIM card, which supports data connectivity.The GPS module provides location data for all the location-based end-user features of the car HUD.
OBD Port
All the important vehicle information (battery management, speed, ignition, reverse/side indications and CAB data) is fetched by the car HUD through OBD port.
The OBD port supports feature like virtual gauges and the 3 cameras for enhanced vehicle steering and navigation.
What is a pico projector?
Pico Projectors, also known as handheld projectors, are companion products for portable devices such as cameras, mobile phones and tablets, and provide a convenient way to quickly project the content of these devices onto any surface.
Source: projectorcentral.com
