The DashLight is one of the HMI design component of ATeam (https://chaoswang.wordpress.com/portfolio/hmi-design-of-a-team/) (https://ateam-eindhoven.nl), to enhancing situational awareness of people sittiing in the autonomous driving vehicle.
DashLight uses LED on the dashboard as ambient display to delivery peripheral information,as a supplement of centre screen. The panel on the dash board consists of multiple perspex-spots, lighten by one led strip that can change colours and patterns of lights.
The structure design of LED panel has three benefits: 1.Defusing the light, without distracting drivers. 2.Makeing sure that light shines to the driver, avoiding reflection on the windshield. 3.Gorgeous, intergrated into the interior of the vehicle.
Through modular design, DashLight fits in different kinds of dashboard, roof, side door. This project enable each researcher to implement his/her ambient lighting prototype in feild study.
About the Structure and material, See pic https://github.com/wallacewangchao/DashLight/blob/master/Structure_Of_DashLight.jpg: The dash light consists of 8 components.
(1) Up cover unit (2mm Wood), for avoiding light going to up direction.
(2) Up frame (2mm Wood), structure frame, and avoiding light going to back direction.
(3) Up matt (2mm Perspex), for connecting the component (2) and (3).
(4) Lighting diffusion unit (2mm Perspex), there are patterns in each unit which is made by laser-engraving, for diffusion the light.
(5) Down frame (2mm Wood), structure frame.
(6) Transparent Matt (1mm Perspex), for connecting the LED strip and the cover.
(7) LED holder (4mm Perspex), for fixing the LED strip.
(8) The Neopixel Led strip (https://www.adafruit.com/product/1138).
About the laser cut blueprint: All the components are made by laser cut. The blue/yellow curves are the cutting-off lines. The black/red curves are the engraving lines.
About the Painting: The wood cover could be print to black or any other colour by spray paint (such as https://github.com/wallacewangchao/DashLight/blob/master/Assembling/acrilex.jpg ), after the laser cut and before assembling.
About the assembling: The glue for plastic is strong enough to connect all the components together. (such as https://github.com/wallacewangchao/DashLight/blob/master/Assembling/64e770b0-43f7-4049-819a-c16cc2b0c30c_1000.jpg ) You can also use the double side tap.
Wang, C., Sander Steeghs., Debayan Chakraborty., Archita Gorle., Debargha Dey., Sietze van de Star., Adityen Sudhakaran., Terken, J., & Hu, J. (2017, September). Designing for Enhancing Situational Awareness of Semi-Autonomous Driving Vehicles. In Adjunct Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Automotive User Interfaces and Interactive Vehicular Applications. ACM. https://github.com/wallacewangchao/DashLight/blob/master/Publication/Designing%20for%20Enhancing%20Situational%20Awareness%20of%20Semi-Autonomous%20Driving%20vehicles_CameraReady.pdf
The vehicle with dashlight is demonstrated in the AUTO UI 17'(https://www.auto-ui.org/17/), and got the best demo award; It was also demonstrated in the 67th Frankfurt Auto Show (Internationale Automobil-Ausstellung 2017, https://www.iaa.de/en/).