Eye position determination in head-up display

A head up display (HUD) system within a vehicle, comprising:

• a picture generation unit (PGU) adapted to project augmented reality graphics that are reflected from an inner surface of a windshield of the vehicle to an eye-box;
• and
• a system controller in communication with the PGU and adapted to initiate calibration of the HUD system, including, with the system controller:
• project, with a pattern projector in communication with the system controller and fixedly positioned relative to the PGU, an eye-box pattern that is reflected from the inner surface of the windshield of the vehicle to a face of a driver of the vehicle, defines the eye-box of the HUD system, is not visible to the driver of the vehicle and is detectable by a driver monitoring system (DMS) within the vehicle and in communication with the system controller;
• capture, with the DMS, images containing the face of the driver and the eye-box pattern projected thereon;
• receive the images captured by the DMS;
• analyze, an image processing algorithm, the images captured by the DMS;
• calculate a position of eyes of the driver relative to the eye-box by measuring a distance from the eyes of the driver to a boundary of the eye-box pattern, and calculating a depth position of the eyes of the driver by measuring width variation within the projected eye-box pattern;
• and
• apply adjustments to the image projected by the PGU based on the calculated position of the eyes of the driver relative to the eye-box.

A vehicle having a head up display (HUD) system, the HUD system comprising:

• a picture generation unit (PGU) adapted to project augmented reality graphics that are reflected from an inner surface of a windshield of the vehicle to an eye-box;
• and
• a system controller in communication with the PGU and adapted to initiate calibration of the HUD system, including, with the system controller:
• project, with a pattern projector in communication with the system controller and fixedly positioned relative to the PGU, an eye-box pattern that is:
• reflected from the inner surface of the windshield of the vehicle to a face of a driver of the vehicle;
• defines the eye-box of the HUD system;
• and
• has a non-visible wavelength that is less than 400 nano-meters or greater than 700 nano-meters and matches an operational wavelength of a drive monitoring system (DMS) within the vehicle and in communication with the system controller;
• capture, with the DMS, images containing the face of the driver and the eye-box pattern projected thereon;
• receive the images captured by the DMS;
• analyze, an image processing algorithm, the images captured by the DMS;
• calculate a position of eyes of the driver relative to the eye-box by measuring a distance from the eyes of the driver to a boundary of the eye-box pattern, and calculating a depth position of the eyes of the driver by measuring width variation within the projected eye-box pattern;
• access a database including a look-up table of pre-determined adjustment parameters for a plurality of locations across the eye-box;
• select pre-determined adjustment parameters corresponding to the calculated position of the eyes of the driver relative to the eye-box;
• and
• apply the selected pre-determined adjustment parameters to the image projected by the PGU, including:
• applying an image shift to the image projected by the PGU;
• applying a warp map to the image projected by the PGU;
• and
• applying a luminance and color uniformity correction to the image projected by the PGU.