UPCOMING VEHICLE DISPLAYS SYMPOSIUM TO HAVE A VIRTUAL FORMAT

Abstract

AS DISPLAY DEVELOPERS GET SET TO EXPERIENCE A FIRST-OF-ITS-KIND VIRTUAL Display Week, another signature SID event is preparing to follow suit: The Vehicle Displays and Interfaces Symposium, organized by the Metro Detroit Chapter, has been reformatted as an online event amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Organizers have also pushed back the conference's initial date from late September to October 14–15, 2020. Now in its 27th year, the event is an important communications link between automakers and producers, fostering dialogue about valuable technologies, says Silviu Pala, chairman of SID's Metro Detroit Chapter. “Metro Detroit Chapter leadership and conference organizers have worked to make the conference a low-cost forum to introduce and debate technologies that are making their way into vehicles,” he says. When Vehicle Displays debuted in the early 90s, it started small with just a handful of automotive companies participating in the expo. But the conference has expanded significantly over the years and drew nearly 80 automotive companies on its 25th anniversary in 2018. According to Thomas Seder, the Metro Detroit Chapter's vice chairman, its emergence as one of North America's premier display conferences reflects how much the industry itself has grown. “Just a decade ago, display makers focused their attention on cell phones and tablets, with automotive considered an afterthought,” he says. “But as those things became commodities, display suppliers began to see the value of addressing the automotive market.” As a result, he says, “Vehicle Displays has become a wildly successful conference with people traveling from other states to see what the automotive industry is up to.” –SILVIU PALA, CHAIRMAN, METRO DETROIT CHAPTER With that, the conference has widened its scope to include topics beyond displays. “Five years ago, 95 percent of what people were interested in was display hardware,” Seder says. Now conference lineups routinely cover topics such as human-machine interfaces (HMI) and vehicle automation. That continues this year, with keynote speakers John Schneider, chief electrical engineer at Ford, and Kristin Kolodge, executive director of HMI and Driver Interaction at J.D. Power, who will explore HMI and advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS). Bob O'Brien, cofounder and president of Display Supply Chain Consultants, will lead a panel discussion on displays and interfaces for autonomous vehicles. The 2020 conference will also explore microLEDs and minLEDS, an important new vehicle display technology. “MicroLEDs are the most disruptive thing we've seen in displays since OLED in the 90s,” Seder says. “If everything works out, it has the potential to be a perfect technology for the automotive industry.” Additionally, it will explore another important technology, holography, with a tutorial led by Seder and Kai-Han Chang, a researcher at General Motors, entitled “Holography and its Automotive Applications.” SAVE THE DATE The 27th Annual Vehicle Displays and Interfaces Symposium and Expo will take place on October 14–15 as an online event; to register, go to www.vehicledisplay.org. Although attendees won't be able to explore the expo as they have in the past, Seder sees other benefits to this year's online format. As with virtual Display Week, Vehicle Display attendees will be able to view content for several months after it is first published during the conference. The online exhibit area is expected to function in a similar fashion to the virtual show floor at Display Week, with a list of companies attendees can scroll through. “One of the nice things about it is that you can spend your time with the topics you're exceedingly interested in. The à la carte approach is a little more useful to me,” Seder says. “The same is true of suppliers who will be presenting their offerings.” In addition, “a lot more will be published to make the conference more useful—there will be more written and published images, more documentation,” Seder says. “The focus will be on the content.” That's one reason why organizers expect to have a good turnout. “Although it's great to be able to touch and see and interact with real demos, having the literature at your fingertips is incredibly valuable,” Seder says.