Adaptive Convoy
Reimagining off-road convoy driving as a shared system, using AR windshield to build vehicle-to-vehicle communication to support trust, coordination, and group awareness under challenging terrain conditions.
Type
Independent
User Scenarios
Pre-Descend
This is where subtle gamification comes in. Instead of seeing each driver as an icon, this layout allows the leader to see everyone's role in the convoy, as well as level of experience.
Uneven Terrain Guidance
This system uses subtle AR ground cues to help drivers anticipate upcoming terrain changes.
Convoy Formation
After descend, reframes off-road driving from a collection of individual vehicles into a single coordinated entity.
Low Visibility
When visibility drops, the leading vehicle is overlaid with a subtle outline and a clear distance indicator, helping drivers maintain convoy continuity without adding instruction or distraction.
Alert System
When a vehicle must stop due to abnormal tire pressure, the following driver receives a contextual alert.
Terrain Contour Projection
Terrain contour projection visualizes safe distance at night using color:
green indicates a safe distance, and the color shifts toward red as the distance becomes unsafe.
*This video is generated in Vizcom
Behind The Scene
Unreal Engine Exploration
I used Unreal Engine to test how terrain could be visualized as a readable, shared signal rather than a raw 3D environment.
Personal Experience
This started from my off-road convoy experience, relying on walkie-talkies in harsh, low-visibility terrain.
Constant channel switching and missed messages made coordination unreliable during critical driving moments.
Facts About Off-Road Driving
In uneven terrain, line-of-sight between vehicles is lost in over 40–60% of convoy movement time.
Field Interview
To understand how convoy off-road drivers perceive, manage, and communicate risk in extreme terrain environment, I conducted interviews with three participants across different experience levels, focusing on four key area:
Terrain & Risk Perception
Decision-Making & Experience
Convoy Communication
Tools & Technology
Insights
Across all interviews, risk was not described as a single mechanical failure, but as a breakdown of shared awareness under conditions of visibility loss, terrain instability, and fragile communication.
Risk begins with perceptual collapse
Communication is reactive and unreliable
Experience functions as the safety system
Tools are fragmented
Competitive Analysis
Recognizing a fragmented market across control systems, navigation apps, and emergency tools.
I decided to reframe off-road mobility as a distributed intelligence problem, introducing a vehicle-to-vehicle shared system that bridges efficiency and safety.
The competitive gaps among the existing solutions are:
Individual-focused, not convoy-aware
Static mapping, not real-time hazard sharing
Verbal communication without visual context
System Orientation
User Scenarios
Design Criteria
1
Make individual risk visible early
2
Interpret risk in context
3
Share individual risk with the team
4
Maintain awareness when interfaces or communication fail
Insights
Off-road driving is fundamentally a group-based activity, not an individual one
There is no integrated technological system supporting the full off-road journey
Team communication is the biggest unresolved challenge in off-road experiences
Design Concept
Wireframes
Information Architecture
Design System
The system balances visual restraint and clarity by anchoring the center display in muted tones and selectively brightening AR elements for safe, glanceable perception in real-world contexts.
Reflection
Working on this project allowed me to reflect on my own role as both a driver and a designer in off-road convoy situations. Having experienced the stress of relying on walkie-talkies in harsh terrain, I became more aware of how easily communication breaks down when attention is divided between the vehicle, the environment, and the group. Designing this system pushed me to translate those moments of friction into opportunities for quieter, more intuitive forms of shared awareness.
This project reshaped how I think about automotive interfaces—not as tools that demand interaction, but as systems that quietly support trust and coordination in the background. It reinforced my belief that the most meaningful driving experiences emerge when technology fades into the periphery, allowing drivers to feel connected to one another without needing to constantly speak, check, or confirm.