An Analysis of Visibility Requirements and Reaction Times of Near-Field Projections

Successful communication between highly automated vehicles and vulnerable road users will be crucial in the future. In addition to the technical requirements of the communication system, the projected content is also essential to ensure successful communication. For this purpose, previous studies have investigated the necessary technical requirements for near-field projections. However, the impact of the presentation content, whether symbol- or text-based, on the technological domain, has yet to be investigated. Therefore, a psychophysical subject study investigated the necessary detection probability for symbol- and text-based projection in the near-field of a vehicle. The visibility of symbol- and text-based projections were analyzed by the subject’s detection rate of the tested projection in an ambient lighting scenario of 20 lx at two different distances. Additionally, the corresponding reaction time of the subjects was measured. The results of the subject study showed that, contrarily, an arbitrary increase does not reduce the reaction time and thus saturates at a level of 650 ms before the 90% detection threshold for both projection contents. The observed detection contrast indicates that symbol-based projections need approximately 25% less contrast level than text-based projections to reach a 90% detection rate.