Automotive Display Integrity Check via Segmented Histogram Analysis
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current methods for verifying the integrity of safety-critical information on automotive vehicle displays often lead to false alarms, causing unnecessary recalls and impacting the perception of quality due to their bit-accurate accuracy, which can result in non-critical image failures being classified as failures.
Innovation Solution
An apparatus and method that checks the integrity of visual display information by segmenting images into areas, comparing pixel attributes against predetermined criteria, and generating histograms to determine if the image is still interpretable by a human observer, allowing for continued operation with small, acceptable failures.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Measurement precision
If bit-accurate accuracy checking is used to verify safety-critical information, then measurement precision is improved, but false alarms increase causing unnecessary recalls
Solution Approach 1:
The display screen is divided into multiple zones, with safety-critical zones (e.g., speedometer, tachometer) separately identified from non-safety-critical zones (e.g., infotainment display). This segmentation allows the integrity checking system to apply different verification standards to different areas, focusing bit-accurate checking only on safety-critical zones while tolerating minor variations in non-critical areas, thereby reducing false alarms while maintaining safety.
2Reliability
If the display is entirely disabled upon detecting any failure, then safety is improved, but productivity is reduced due to unnecessary recalls
Solution Approach 1:
The system applies different quality standards and response actions to different parts of the display. Safety-critical zones undergo strict integrity verification with high confidence thresholds, while non-safety-critical zones allow for greater tolerance. When failures are detected, the system selectively disables only the affected safety-critical zones rather than the entire display, maintaining vehicle operation and reducing unnecessary recalls while ensuring safety-critical information integrity.
3Measurement precision
If strict integrity checking is applied to all display areas, then measurement precision is improved, but device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The display is segmented into safety-critical and non-safety-critical zones, allowing the integrity checking system to apply simplified verification methods to non-critical areas and reserved bit-accurate checking only to safety-critical zones. This reduces the overall computational complexity and processing requirements of the checking system while maintaining high precision where safety is concerned.
Data Source
AI summary
The invention provides an apparatus and method for checking the integrity of visual display information and has particular application to checking images displayed in an automotive vehicle, such images containing safety critical information. The image intensity is checked only to an extent commensurate with a human being able to interpret its correct meaning. Hence, images which are defective in some way yet still recognisable by the human eye are not classified as failures. In one embodiment, a part of the image containing safety critical information is segmented into smaller areas and the luminance of pixels in each segmented area is compared with a threshold brightness level and a threshold darkness level. A histogram for each area is generated and compared with a reference.