scholarly journals Space Invaders: Pedestrian Proxemic Utility Functions and Trust Zones for Autonomous Vehicle Interactions

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fanta Camara ◽  
Charles Fox
Keyword(s):  
Autonomous Vehicles ◽  
Autonomous Vehicle ◽  
Utility Functions ◽  
Hyperbolic Function ◽  
The Road ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Public Datasets ◽  
Discrete Theory ◽  
And Control ◽  
Road Crossing

AbstractUnderstanding pedestrian proxemic utility and trust will help autonomous vehicles to plan and control interactions with pedestrians more safely and efficiently. When pedestrians cross the road in front of human-driven vehicles, the two agents use knowledge of each other’s preferences to negotiate and to determine who will yield to the other. Autonomous vehicles will require similar understandings, but previous work has shown a need for them to be provided in the form of continuous proxemic utility functions, which are not available from previous proxemics studies based on Hall’s discrete zones. To fill this gap, a new Bayesian method to infer continuous pedestrian proxemic utility functions is proposed, and related to a new definition of ‘physical trust requirement’ (PTR) for road-crossing scenarios. The method is validated on simulation data then its parameters are inferred empirically from two public datasets. Results show that pedestrian proxemic utility is best described by a hyperbolic function, and that trust by the pedestrian is required in a discrete ‘trust zone’ which emerges naturally from simple physics. The PTR concept is then shown to be capable of generating and explaining the empirically observed zone sizes of Hall’s discrete theory of proxemics.

Pedestrians’ understanding of fully autonomous vehicles (FAV) intent to stop

2020 ◽  
Vol 64 (1) ◽  
pp. 1931-1932
Author(s):  
Michal Hochman ◽  
Tal Oron-Gilad
Keyword(s):  
Autonomous Vehicles ◽  
Autonomous Vehicle ◽  
Background Color ◽  
Urban Road ◽  
The Road ◽  
Message Type ◽  
On The Road ◽  
Future Work ◽  
Road Crossing ◽  
Distance Conditions

This study explored pedestrians’ understanding of Fully Autonomous Vehicle (FAV) intention and what influences their decision to cross. Twenty participants saw fixed simulated urban road crossing scenes with a FAV present on the road. The scenes differed from one another in the FAV’s messages: the external Human-Machine Interfaces (e-HMI) background color, message type and modality, the FAV’s distance from the crossing place, and its size. Eye-tracking data and objective measurements were collected. Results revealed that pedestrians looked at the e-HMI before making their decision; however, they did not always make the decision according to the e-HMIs’ color, instructions (in advice messages), or intention (in status messages). Moreover, when they acted according to the e-HMI proposition, for certain distance conditions, they tended to hesitate before making the decision. Findings suggest that pedestrians’ decision making to cross depends on a combination of the e-HMI implementation and the car distance. Future work should explore the robustness of the findings in dynamic and more complex crossing environments.

scholarly journals Model Contrast of Autonomous Vehicle Impacts on Traffic

2020 ◽  
Vol 2020 ◽  
pp. 1-10
Author(s):  
Derek Hungness ◽  
Raj Bridgelall
Keyword(s):  
Autonomous Vehicles ◽  
Travel Demand ◽  
Autonomous Vehicle ◽  
Sociodemographic Factors ◽  
Vehicle Miles Traveled ◽  
The Road ◽  
Traffic Conditions ◽  
Demand Models ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Potential Benefits

The adoption of connected and autonomous vehicles (CAVs) is in its infancy. Therefore, very little is known about their potential impacts on traffic. Meanwhile, researchers and market analysts predict a wide range of possibilities about their potential benefits and the timing of their deployments. Planners traditionally use various types of travel demand models to forecast future traffic conditions. However, such models do not yet integrate any expected impacts from CAV deployments. Consequently, many long-range transportation plans do not yet account for their eventual deployment. To address some of these uncertainties, this work modified an existing model for Madison, Wisconsin. To compare outcomes, the authors used identical parameter changes and simulation scenarios for a model of Gainesville, Florida. Both models show that with increasing levels of CAV deployment, both the vehicle miles traveled and the average congestion speed will increase. However, there are some important exceptions due to differences in the road network layout, geospatial features, sociodemographic factors, land-use, and access to transit.

scholarly journals Self-Driving Cars and Criminal Liability

2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (3-4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Béla Csitei
Keyword(s):  
Autonomous Vehicles ◽  
Criminal Liability ◽  
Autonomous Vehicle ◽  
Essential Elements ◽  
Criminal Sanction ◽  
Criminal Offence ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Self Driving Cars

After clarifying the concepts of automated and autonomous vehicles, the purpose of the study is to investigate how reasonable the criminal sanction is arising from accidents caused by autonomous vehicles. The next question to be answered is that the definition of the crime according to the Hungarian law may be applied in case of traffic related criminal offences caused by automated and autonomous vehicles. During my research I paid special attention to two essential elements of criminal offence, namely the human act and guilt. Furthermore, I strived for finding solution for the next problem, as well: if the traffic related criminal offence is committed by driving an autonomous vehicle, how to define the subject of criminal liability.

scholarly journals Formation Control for a Fleet of Autonomous Ground Vehicles: A Survey

Robotics ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
pp. 67 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aakash Soni ◽  
Huosheng Hu
Keyword(s):  
Autonomous Vehicles ◽  
Formation Control ◽  
State Of The Art ◽  
Autonomous Vehicle ◽  
Ground Vehicles ◽  
Implementation Challenges ◽  
Autonomous Ground Vehicles ◽  
Vehicle Platooning ◽  
And Control

Autonomous/unmanned driving is the major state-of-the-art step that has a potential to fundamentally transform the mobility of individuals and goods. At present, most of the developments target standalone autonomous vehicles, which can sense the surroundings and control the vehicle based on this perception, with limited or no driver intervention. This paper focuses on the next step in autonomous vehicle research, which is the collaboration between autonomous vehicles, mainly vehicle formation control or vehicle platooning. To gain a deeper understanding in this area, a large number of the existing published papers have been reviewed systemically. In other words, many distributed and decentralized approaches of vehicle formation control are studied and their implementations are discussed. Finally, both technical and implementation challenges for formation control are summarized.

Autonomous Vehicle-Target Assignment: A Game-Theoretical Formulation

2007 ◽  
Vol 129 (5) ◽  
pp. 584-596 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gürdal Arslan ◽  
Jason R. Marden ◽  
Jeff S. Shamma
Keyword(s):  
Utility Function ◽  
Autonomous Vehicles ◽  
Autonomous Vehicle ◽  
Utility Functions ◽  
Fading Memory ◽  
Theoretical Formulation ◽  
Design Procedures ◽  
Target Assignment ◽  
Negotiation Mechanism ◽  
Adaptive Play

We consider an autonomous vehicle-target assignment problem where a group of vehicles are expected to optimally assign themselves to a set of targets. We introduce a game-theoretical formulation of the problem in which the vehicles are viewed as self-interested decision makers. Thus, we seek the optimization of a global utility function through autonomous vehicles that are capable of making individually rational decisions to optimize their own utility functions. The first important aspect of the problem is to choose the utility functions of the vehicles in such a way that the objectives of the vehicles are localized to each vehicle yet aligned with a global utility function. The second important aspect of the problem is to equip the vehicles with an appropriate negotiation mechanism by which each vehicle pursues the optimization of its own utility function. We present several design procedures and accompanying caveats for vehicle utility design. We present two new negotiation mechanisms, namely, “generalized regret monitoring with fading memory and inertia” and “selective spatial adaptive play,” and provide accompanying proofs of their convergence. Finally, we present simulations that illustrate how vehicle negotiations can consistently lead to near-optimal assignments provided that the utilities of the vehicles are designed appropriately.

scholarly journals Canonical instabilities of autonomous vehicle systems

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rodrick Wallace
Keyword(s):  
Traffic Control ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Autonomous Vehicle ◽  
Power Network ◽  
Ground Vehicles ◽  
The Road ◽  
Control Information ◽  
Formal Argument ◽  
Vehicle Systems ◽  
And Control

Formal argument suggests that command, communication and control systems can remain stable in the sense of the Data Rate Theorem that mandates the minimum rate of control information required to stabilize inherently unstable 'plants', but may nonetheless, under fog-of-war demands, collapse into dysfunctional modes at variance with their fundamental mission. We apply the theory to autonomous ground vehicles under intelligent traffic control in which swarms of interacting, self-driving devices are inherently unstable as a consequence of the basic irregularity of the road network. It appears that such 'V2V/V2I' systems will experience large-scale failures analogous to the vast propagating fronts of power network blackouts, and possibly less benign, but more subtle patterns of `psychopathology' at various scales.

scholarly journals Road Segmentation using Semantic Segmentation Networks for ADAS

2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (11) ◽  
pp. 1740-1743
Keyword(s):  
Autonomous Vehicles ◽  
Autonomous Vehicle ◽  
Warning System ◽  
Semantic Segmentation ◽  
Boundary Line ◽  
Segmentation Result ◽  
Safe Driving ◽  
The Road ◽  
Straight Line ◽  
Road Segmentation

In this paper, we propose a method to automatically segment the road area from the input road images to support safe driving of autonomous vehicles. In the proposed method, the semantic segmentation network (SSN) is trained by using the deep learning method and the road area is segmented by utilizing the SSN. The SSN uses the weights initialized from the VGC-16 network to create the SegNet network. In order to fast the learning time and to obtain results, the class is simplified and learned so that it can be divided into two classes as the road area and the non-road area in the trained SegNet CNN network. In order to improve the accuracy of the road segmentation result, the boundary line of the road region with the straight-line component is detected through the Hough transform and the result is shown by dividing the accurate road region by combining with the segmentation result of the SSN. The proposed method can be applied to safe driving support by autonomously driving the autonomous vehicle by automatically classifying the road area during operation and applying it to the road area departure warning system

scholarly journals Autonomous Driving—A Crash Explained in Detail

2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (23) ◽  
pp. 5126 ◽  
Author(s):  
Betz ◽  
Heilmeier ◽  
Wischnewski ◽  
Stahl ◽  
Lienkamp
Keyword(s):  
Autonomous Vehicles ◽  
Autonomous Vehicle ◽  
Autonomous Driving ◽  
Software Test ◽  
Planning And Control ◽  
Modular Software ◽  
Fatal Crash ◽  
Detailed Explanation ◽  
A Minor ◽  
And Control

Since 2017, a research team from the Technical University of Munich has developed a software stack for autonomous driving. The software was used to participate in the Roborace Season Alpha Championship. The championship aims to achieve autonomous race cars competing with different software stacks against each other. In May 2019, during a software test in Modena, Italy, the greatest danger in autonomous driving became reality: A minor change in environmental influences led an extensively tested software to crash into a barrier at speed. Crashes with autonomous vehicles have happened before but a detailed explanation of why software failed and what part of the software was not working correctly is missing in research articles. In this paper we present a general method that can be used to display an autonomous vehicle disengagement to explain in detail what happened. This method is then used to display and explain the crash from Modena. Firstly a brief introduction into the modular software stack that was used in the Modena event, consisting of three individual parts—perception, planning, and control—is given. Furthermore, the circumstancescausing the crash are elaborated in detail. By presented and explaining in detail which softwarepart failed and contributed to the crash we can discuss further software improvements. As a result, we present necessary functions that need to be integrated in an autonomous driving software stack to prevent such a vehicle behavior causing a fatal crash. In addition we suggest an enhancement of the current disengagement reports for autonomous driving regarding a detailed explanation of the software part that was causing the disengagement. In the outlook of this paper we present two additional software functions for assessing the tire and control performance of the vehicle to enhance the autonomous.

scholarly journals An Integrated Model for User State Detection of Subjective Discomfort in Autonomous Vehicles

Vehicles ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 3 (4) ◽  
pp. 764-777
Author(s):  
Dario Niermann ◽  
Alexander Trende ◽  
Klas Ihme ◽  
Uwe Drewitz ◽  
Cornelia Hollander ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Autonomous Vehicles ◽  
Linear Models ◽  
Driving Simulator ◽  
Autonomous Vehicle ◽  
The Road ◽  
Novel Approach ◽  
Driving Scenario ◽  
On The Road ◽  
Using Data ◽  
Subjective Discomfort

The quickly rising development of autonomous vehicle technology and increase of (semi-) autonomous vehicles on the road leads to an increased demand for more sophisticated human–machine-cooperation approaches to improve trust and acceptance of these new systems. In this work, we investigate the feeling of discomfort of human passengers while driving autonomously and the automatic detection of this discomfort with several model approaches, using the combination of different data sources. Based on a driving simulator study, we analyzed the discomfort reports of 50 participants for autonomous inner city driving. We found that perceived discomfort depends on the driving scenario (with discomfort generally peaking in complex situations) and on the passenger (resulting in interindividual differences in reported discomfort extend and duration). Further, we describe three different model approaches on how to predict the passenger discomfort using data from the vehicle’s sensors as well as physiological and behavioral data from the passenger. The model’s precision varies greatly across the approaches, the best approach having a precision of up to 80%. All of our presented model approaches use combinations of linear models and are thus fast, transparent, and safe. Lastly, we analyzed these models using the SHAP method, which enables explaining the models’ discomfort predictions. These explanations are used to infer the importance of our collected features and to create a scenario-based discomfort analysis. Our work demonstrates a novel approach on passenger state modelling with simple, safe, and transparent models and with explainable model predictions, which can be used to adapt the vehicles’ actions to the needs of the passenger.

scholarly journals Endangering yourself to save another: A real life ethical dilemma

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Igor Radun ◽  
Jenni Radun ◽  
Jyrki Kaistinen ◽  
Jake Olivier ◽  
Göran Kecklund ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Ethical Dilemma ◽  
Autonomous Vehicles ◽  
Autonomous Vehicle ◽  
Real Life ◽  
Survey Study ◽  
Heavy Vehicle ◽  
The Road ◽  
Road Users ◽  
Empathy Score ◽  
Experimental Survey

Unlike hypothetical trolley problem studies and an ongoing ethical dilemma with autonomous vehicles, road users can face similar ethical dilemmas in real life. Swerving a heavy vehicle towards the road-side in order to avoid a head-on crash with a much lighter passenger car is often the only option available which could save lives. However, running off-road increases the probability of a roll-over and endangers the life of the heavy vehicle driver. We have created an experimental survey study in which heavy vehicle drivers randomly received one of two possible scenarios. We found that responders were more likely to report they would ditch their vehicle in order to save the hypothetical driver who fell asleep than to save the driver who deliberately diverted their car towards the participant’s heavy vehicle. Additionally, the higher the empathy score, the higher the probability of ditching a vehicle. Implications for autonomous vehicle programming are discussed.

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