Naked Science Forum
Non Life Sciences => Technology => Topic started by: Expectant_Philosopher on 01/07/2014 23:03:22
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Imagine the safety improvements if you could see what's in front of a truck without an obstructed view. If all trucks would use a front facing camera and a rear facing thin OLED screen, it would be as if the truck had a see through window. Besides safety it would also give trucks an alternate revenue stream by selling advertisements on the margins of the view.
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Birds fly into windows because they don't see them.
The military are trying to do essentially what you are suggesting, as a form of camouflage.
I don't think it's a good idea.
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We wouldn't be trying to make the truck invisible, we'd merely be giving drivers following a window to see what is to the fore of the truck to allow them to make an informed decision whether it is safe to pass. On a four lane passing trucks is not so much of an issue, but if you have ever been on a hilly winding two lane road behind the huge hulk of a slow moving truck or tractor you know how treacherous it can be to overtake.
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With today's display screens, the display would only seem to be transparent from a single viewpoint. If you move your head, the viewpoint won't shift.
But a related application may be to produce cars with no blindspots due to pillars. Covering the pillars with a display panel would allow the driver to see "through" the pillar.
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I wouldn't think that it would matter much the angle of your head to the image, if the image were from the viewpoint necessary to properly overtake the truck. However, multiple camera technology allows for multiple viewpoint rendering so the angle of view does not degrade your ability to see the projected image.
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Imagine a line of trucks with screens on the back displaying the view ahead of them. You're going to see an image within an image within and image within... etc. Which of those many images are you going to react to instinctively when something odd suddenly happens? It would be better to have everything converted into a simulated overhead view and to drive by that.
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If you drop back a bit the truck doesn't fill your whole field of view, and you can see past it better.
Some people will find this easier and cheaper than fitting TV screens to the backs of trucks and then fitting the TV screens with armed guards to stop people pinching them
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As for the theft risk, vandalism risk, this could mitigated by the technology itself. Thin film screens such as OLED's could be made to retract like a roll top desk, or printed directly on the surface of the back of the truck with protective cover when not in use. As for the infinite image, this could be mitigated by the view angle of desired image. The best image is the viewpoint that looks to the front and slightly left of centerline. With this view angle from the cameras, there would be no infinite mirroring.
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All of which has been rendered irrelevant by the EU regulation of vehicle speeds. Consider the ideal case of a motorway, where you know here is no oncoming traffic.
Having anything up to 30 forward gears, all trucks travel at 60 mph plus or minus a tiny bit, depending on whether they are empty or loaded. Eventually the empty trucks catch up with the loaded ones and overtake. The speed difference being only 2 x a tiny bit, no other traffic can overtake in a 2-lane highway.
In a 3-lane highway the outer lane is for overtaking only, and no trucks, so it will be full of cars doing 80 mph. If you are in the middle lane and want to overtake the truck in front of you, you have to drop back to give yourself room to accelerate to 80. But as soon as you do so, either another truck will appear from the slow lane or a car will drop in from the overtaking lane.
So overtaking is impossible, regardless of whether the road ahead is clear of oncoming traffic.
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Everything will be driven 100% by software soon anyway, so don't invest too much time into developing something which will be obsolete before it's finished.