Driving has its fair share of annoyances, and trying to drive into the sun is definitely one of them. Sometimes the sun’s in the right position where your sun visor will actually work, letting you see what’s ahead. More often than not though, you end up blocking a good part of your forward visibility without much actual benefit. At CES 2020, Bosch showcased a new technology meant to replace the traditional visor, using a traditional LCD panel and a camera system to track drivers’ eye movements.
It’s called a “Virtual Visor”, and it links a LCD panel to an integrated camera to track the sun’s shadow against the driver or passenger’s face. According to Bosch, the system then uses artificial intelligence to determine where the eyes, nose and mouth are located to see where the shadows are being cast. The Virtual Visor replaces the traditional sun visor by darkening the sections of the display where light directly hits the driver’s eyes.
By just darkening certain hexagonal tiles on the LCD display, it allows most of the visor to remain transparent. That way, you’re not blocking a good portion of your forward visibility. Jason Zink, Bosch North America’s technical expert and co-creator of the Virtual Visor said of the invention, “We discovered early in the development that users adjust their traditional sun visors to always cast a shadow on their own eyes.”
The Virtual Visor is just one technology Bosch has on display at this year’s CES event. The company is also working on a 3D display for use in cars, which adds a depth of field to the instrument cluster or infotainment display.
