Looks like GM has put their bad times behind them and is well on their way to continuing innovation. This time, GM has made a practical HUD that could very well be seen and used in their next generation of vehicles.

Imagine a fog-shrouded morning when you cannot see the end of your driveway let alone the road you’re about to drive. Wouldn’t it be great if the sides of the road could magically appear on your windshield?

It’s not magic, and it’s not far away either.

General Motors R&D and several universities are working on a system that would use data gathered from an array of vehicle sensors and cameras and project images generated by compact ultra violet lasers directly onto the entire surface of the windshield.

“We’re looking to create enhanced vision systems,” says Thomas Seder, group lab manager-GM R&D. His team is working with Carnegie Mellon University and The University of Southern California, as well as other institutions, to create a full windshield head-up system leveraging night vision, navigation and camera-based sensor technologies to improve driver visibility and object detection ability.

“Let’s say you’re driving in fog, we could use the vehicle’s infrared cameras to identify where the edge of the road is and the lasers could ‘paint’ the edge of the road onto the windshield so the driver knows where the edge of the road is,” Seder said.

This expands on the prior generation of GM HUD’s deployed in their GMC Acadia, Chevrolet Corvette, Buick LaCrosse and Cadillac STS and takes it to the next level. No mention of exactly when this will be made available; but I’m hoping it’s soon.

[ Links: GM, GM Media ]