Development of a stereoscopic head-up display

摘要

Head-up displays provide the pilot of an aircraft with a means to view real-world cues simultaneously with on-board flight information. While color and intensity coding is state of the art in modern glass cockpits, head-up displays are still monochrome and limited in brightness. Only contrast and motion are used of the four normal human visual capabilities (contrast, color, motion and stereo). Furthermore the symbols have to be based solely on lines to maintain see-through capability. These limitations together with collimation of the symbology to a certain distance make all indications appear like one object in single depth plane and lead to mutual cluttering. Since separation by design can only be achieved with form and font a high effort in training of the flight crews is mandatory. The introduction of stereoscopic information presentation in the head-up display promises an improved human-machine-interface by providing intuitive separation and combination of indications. A stereoscopic head-up display was developed on the basis of a modern civil head-up display and integrated into a fixed based flight simulator with a collimated visual projection system. First tests indicate improved information perception in head-up displays by adding stereoscopy.