"Bringing optical technology to every car" is Huawei's new idea, and it is already doing so.
Wen 丨 wisdom driving network old Jia
A few days ago, the intelligent driver entered Huawei's Shenzhen headquarters and entered the Huawei Shenzhen F5G Optical Innovation Lab, which is rarely seen by the outside world.
Optical communication technology can be said to be one of the most core technologies of Huawei in the field of ICT, Huawei has been laying out in this field for more than 20 years, ranking first in the world for 12 consecutive years, and has established its position at the forefront of basic research in the field of light, specifically in space optics, freeform mirrors, optical displays and other aspects of in-depth technological research and innovation breakthroughs.
At the commercial application level, Huawei has extended optical communication technology to optical application research, and is currently mainly focusing on the series of intelligent vehicle optical solutions.
▲Huawei's F5G Optical Innovation Lab at its headquarters in Shenzhen
Everything is screen: The car display is entering the era of light imaging with large screens from the era of LCD screens
Huawei's layout in the field of smart cars has attracted widespread market attention, such as optical application technology in the intelligent car industry there is a huge imagination space, its future is to help car companies to create an "all-optical intelligent car".
Before explaining what an "all-optical smart car" is, let's first understand a product that Huawei's optical application technology has matured and will be commercially used in the automotive field: Huawei AR-HUD. Judging from the name, this product can also find similar products in the current automotive market, but Huawei AR-HUD has its own unique features.
Let's start with the Huawei AR-HUD.
Huawei's technology in space optics, freeform mirrors, and optical displays is very mature, especially in the field of communication optical crossover, Huawei's pioneering full-light backplane and ODP (Optical Display Processor) technology achieve fine control and intelligent scheduling of light wavelengths. Huawei extends this technology to the field of smart cars, and through the precise control of visible light, it greatly improves the performance of AR-HUD products.
HUD (head-up display technology) has now been widely used in the field of high-end passenger cars, but there are currently problems such as limited information display, poor backlight performance, and image clarity to be improved.
Huawei released the AR-HUD (Augmented Reality Head Up Display) augmented reality head-up display product at the Shanghai Auto Show in April this year, which greatly improved the breadth of display content and upgraded the front windshield to a "first screen" of intelligent information that integrates technology, security, and entertainment, rather than the physical screen we now understand.
On the one hand, based on AR navigation, instrument display and other functions can assist driving safety, while the product will introduce audio-visual entertainment and games into the HUD mode, which will be expected to reshape the interaction and display mode of the intelligent cockpit.
▲ Huawei AR-HUD volume is only 10L
In order to create the "first screen" in the car, Huawei AR-HUD has the characteristics of small size, large format, and ultra-high definition compared with similar products in the industry. First of all, its volume is only 10L, but the viewing angle can reach 13° x 5°, which is called "super large FOV volume ratio" in industry terminology, which allows it to adapt to a variety of models.
▲Small size but viewing angle up to 13° x 5°, with "large FOV volume ratio"
So how big can it be?
The Huawei AR-HUD can present a 70-inch large-format display area 7.5 meters in front of the driver. You can imagine the picture of the 70-inch TV in the home, far beyond the maximum size that can be achieved by the current physical screen in the car.
▲Huawei AR-HUD can present a 70-inch large-format display area 7.5 meters in front of the driver
In this lab experience, we mainly saw that Huawei AR-HUD displayed instrument information along the lower area of the front windshield, provided AR safety navigation information that fits the road surface and covered multiple lanes on demand, such as accurate navigation at three-fork intersections.
There are two functional scenarios, which may become a "qualitative leap" for AR-HUD to improve the driving experience.
The night vision/rain and fog enhanced prompt function can accurately display the vehicles and pedestrians in front of and around, and can effectively improve driving safety when the line of sight is poor in extreme environments.
Imagine that when the typhoon weather in Shenzhen causes heavy rain to drive with unclear vision, and seasonal extreme weather such as northern blizzards and sandstorms causes low visibility and narrowing of vision, do you need more high-tech auxiliary functions to display the driving direction, speed, surrounding obstacles and other tips in front of you?
▲In the case of rain and fog and night vision, it is still possible to clearly display and identify various obstacles on the road
Another function, through the combination with the real-life map POI (Point of Interest), AR-HUD can also display three-dimensional information such as parking lots, restaurants, shopping, entertainment, and gas stations in real time during driving.
For drivers of any age, this function can be truly combined with the "purpose of driving", when you go to a certain café, when you are about to arrive, the café location prompt will appear accurately to a certain direction in front of your line of sight, will it greatly reduce the "late arrival rate" in the future? It can even be boldly imagined that this scenario will not create a new business model, in addition to displaying "destination" information, but also implant advertising functions such as "reviews"?
▲Combined with the real-life map POI (Point of Interest), AR-HUD can display three-dimensional information such as parking lots, restaurants, shopping, entertainment, and gas stations in real time during driving
AR navigation now has many car brands, and AR-HUD has C-HUD/W-HUD has been equipped with up to a number of models, "from the early HUD to AR-HUD products iterative upgrade, what are Huawei's advantages?" Does the market really need an AR-HUD? ”
According to him, the greater progress of Huawei AR-HUD is to achieve a full HD visual display of up to 2K, while solving the problems of small format and limited information display of traditional HUD, so that AR-HUD directly enters the era of "super vision".
According to Huawei, the product adopts the industry-leading ODP (Optical Display Processor) optical engine hardware technology to achieve display control of fine pixels within the micron-level size, and at the same time realizes high-quality imaging of AR-HUD through multi-parameter combination iteration and matching optical algorithms such as distortion correction and spatial matrix conversion.
▲Introduction to Huawei's ODP solution
If the intelligent cockpit has triggered an interactive revolution, Huawei believes that AR-HUD will become a new window for human-vehicle interaction, Huang Zhiyong mentioned that with the development of voice recognition, face recognition and other technologies, the AR-HUD that was previously a windshield as a display interface is expected to gradually replace the instrument and central control with a larger display size and a better immersive experience effect. For car companies, the technology experience brought by Huawei AR-HUD is in line with the concept of smart cars, and this innovative product will become a new selling point for smart cars.
▲AR-HUD can display more ADAS information and navigation information
Huang Zhiyong revealed that there are currently a number of mainstream car companies are cooperating with AR-HUD commercial testing, car companies also mentioned that with the level of automatic driving getting higher and higher, huD needs to have a larger canvas, to achieve AR display more ADAS information, navigation information, etc., can improve the driver's situational awareness, further improve driving safety. The smart car equipped with Huawei's AR-HUD will soon be mass production.
▲ AR-HUD can realize phone calls, games and HD movie playback, and its picture quality is amazing
In the Shenzhen laboratory, the intelligent driver personally experienced an AR-HUD-based racing game.
In the 70-inch screen, driving a racing game is a real and illusory feeling. It is more immersive than a racing game based on the steering wheel of a certain brand of smart electric vehicles, but the screen is displayed on the central control screen. Although its picture quality will continue to improve, because the picture is placed at a distance of 7.5 meters from the experiencer, its experience is more comfortable and natural, and it is not as oppressive as the screen. Smart Driver Believes that in the consumer experience, it is easier to accept this model.
▲ Racing game screen
The commercialization of AR-HUDs based on Huawei's ODP solution helps reduce the load of massive information display on the physical screen in the car and guides the driver to focus more on the front line of sight. In addition to AR-HUD, Huawei will apply leading light technology to the scene-based needs of the car around the human eye, and will also create a variety of light imaging products such as smart lights and on-board super displays.
According to the information obtained by the intelligent driver during the visit to the laboratory, Huawei's smart car lights will play a role in safety lighting and information transmission in the future, and the "on-board super display" will create a kind of personal theater available everywhere for the rear passengers.
In simple terms, the front windshield, side windows, and panoramic canopy on the roof can all be used as screens to display information, enabling highly realistic holographic imaging.
"There are still many areas of smart cars that we think can be explored, empowered by light technology, for example, as the most important part of the car, the lights should play a role in safety lighting, signal prompts, etc. in terms of intelligence, to reduce the occurrence of safety accidents; and in terms of personalized experience, can the lights present more different pattern expressions, and even dynamic effects such as interactive functions? This is all something we need to think about together. Huang Zhiyong added, "In fact, whether it is AR-HUD or intelligent car lights, on-board super display will enhance the value of the car, in the process of product iteration continue to promote intelligent car technology innovation, in turn is also to promote our intelligent car light solutions in the scene experience design, human factors engineering research and other aspects of continuous progress." ”
However, the above three applications are only the tip of the iceberg of future light application technology in the automotive field.
Create an "all-optical intelligent car" solution with light as the underlying technology
According to Huawei's "Smart Car Solution 2030" report, Huawei's vision for the future of in-vehicle optical applications is:
"Shine everything" builds a panoramic and immersive holographic horizon, bringing human beings a world of light with the ultimate visual experience.
The application of vehicle light also has two directions to break through, one is light sensing all things, and the other is light linking all things.
Light is becoming a new communication language, a new way of perception, and a record carrier for the bustling world of mankind.
Is this in line with our most fashionable all-in-one intelligence and internet of everything?
So what is light sensing all things and light connected all things?
For the intelligent vehicle light application solution, the application of "light sensing everything" in the car is to achieve all-weather and all-round intelligent protection and improve driving safety. In-vehicle light technology can improve the breadth and depth of environmental modeling, and achieve accurate environmental modeling through innovative applications such as near-infrared light perception, thermal light perception and image light perception, achieving "unprecedented".
The external environment perception information generated after modeling will not only serve intelligent driving, but also serve the people in the car and improve driving safety. In environments with extremely low visibility, such as night, rain, snow and fog, the sensory fusion lights can restore accurate environmental information and eliminate the visual barriers of the driver in extreme environments. Based on the fusion of multi-band perception information, it can more accurately identify biological and risk factors and achieve "difficult to distinguish".
The optical connection is based on the strong communication connection ability of the optical network, paving the information highway for the intelligence and networking of the car, giving the car a new interactive channel, ensuring driving safety, and establishing emotional connection.
In fact, there are two levels, one level is the data communication of human-computer interaction in the car, and the other level is the underlying architecture system of the car to achieve optical fiber communication.
In the view of intelligent drivers, the more revolutionary scene of Huawei's optical application is that Huawei is using optical technology to build a smart car network chassis architecture, which is a new generation of intelligent car architecture built on the basis of optical communication.
This is the "all-optical smart car" architecture conceived by Huawei from the inside out.
It can be summarized into two points, namely, the automotive chassis architecture based on optical communication and the optical application system such as human-vehicle interaction and in-vehicle entertainment with optical connection and optical imaging technology as the core.
It's imaginative.
Wang Jun, chief operating officer of Huawei's intelligent vehicle solution BU, said in September this year that Huawei does not rule out the transformation from electricity to light in the in-vehicle communication system in the future, and eventually realizes the transformation from tram to optical vehicle in the future.
"For Huawei, "bringing optical technology to every vehicle" is not a cross-border from scratch, but to add the optical root technology accumulated over the years to the automotive field" Huang Zhiyong told zhishengjun, "In addition to the automotive field, huawei optical applications will be extended to more industries in the future, such as by fully tapping the light-rich spectrum resources, spectra can be used for water quality monitoring, gas detection, material composition detection, and even can be used for human health indicators." ”
At present, Huawei's optical application R&D team is still expanding and growing, including old experts who have been engaged in optical technology research and development for more than 20 years, as well as young engineers in their 20s.
The era of ubiquitous optical connection and omnipresent optical applications is not far away. The "all-light smart car" is an exciting innovation that is expected to be realized at the earliest.
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