BMW Motorrad is developing ‘head-up display’ helmet with “mini-computer” and integrated speakers. In the case of BMW, its biggest interest in the technology is to provide the rider with pertinent information that would otherwise require a glance away from the road.
The BMW helmet will be paired to the motorcycle so that information such as tire pressures, oil level, fuel level, speed, gear position, and speed limit can be displayed inside the rider’s faceshield as conditions require. Future potential would include navigation, rear-view and forward-facing cameras, traffic updates, and warnings of danger: “By means of the future V2V (vehicle-to-vehicle) communication, it might also be possible to display information in real time, for example to give due warning of any suddenly impending hazards.” BMW hopes to bring the helmet to market in the next couple of years.
BMW hopes to bring its helmet from concept to a retail product within a few years. It likely still has a lot to do. While the display, which comes from an augmented-reality eyepiece company called DigiLens, already works fairly well, much of the helmet’s intelligence — its ability to connect to the bike and your phone — appears to be incomplete, explaining why BMW was showing a scripted, non-interactive demo. If BMW can get it all working, this helmet could be one of the first augmented reality headsets worth wearing.
With a view to offering this technology in motorcycles of the future, a pre-development process was conducted in which a BMW Motorrad helmet was fitted with an innovative head-up display function. This enables the projection of data directly into the rider’s field of view. This means that the rider no longer has to glance at the instrument panel and he is able to concentrate fully and without distraction on the road traffic.
All displays are freely programmable; ideally, to provide the best-possible support for rider safety, only information that is helpful and relevant to the current situation should be displayed to the rider at any given moment.
The display options comprise safety-relevant information, for instance data relating to the technical status of the motorcycle, such as tyre pressure, oil level and fuel level, travel speed and selected gear, speed limit and road sign recognition, plus warnings of impending dangers.
for more details visit: http://www.bmwusa.com/
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