Investigating huds in specialty vehicles

Currently, several technologies are being integrated into a single system that provides the driver of a specialty vehicle with a virtual representation of the view out the windshield via a Head Up Display. As part of the development of this system, we are exploring human factors issues in a series of alternating simulation experiments and field studies. Here, we discuss a simulation experiment and a field study. In the simulation experiment, we compared the effectiveness of lane departure warnings given in three modalities - visual, auditory, and tactile (via the driver's seat). In the field study, we used a snowplow equipped with a Head Up Display, a Differential Global Positioning System, and digital geo-spatial databases. The participants were snowplow operators. The sessions that they participated were treated as a knowledge acquisition sessions. The information obtained during in this field study feed back into the next simulation stage of the program.