Biblio

Advances in Vehicular Cyber-Physical Systems (VCPS) are the primary enablers of the shift from no automation to fully autonomous vehicles (AVs). One of the impacts of this shift is to develop safe AVs in which most or all of the functions of the human driver are replaced with an intelligent system. However, while some progress has been made in equipping AVs with advanced AI capabilities, VCPS designers are still faced with the challenge of designing trustworthy AVs that are in sync with the unpredictable behaviours of humans. In order to address this challenge, we present a model that describes how a Human Ambassador component can be integrated into the overall design of a new generation of VCPS. A scenario is presented to demonstrate how the model can work in practice. Formalisation and co-simulation challenges associated with integrating the Human Ambassador component and future work we are undertaking are also discussed.

We performed a driving simulator study to investigate merging decisions with respect to an interaction partner in time-critical situations. The experimental paradigm was a two-alternative forced choice, where the subjects could choose to merge before human vehicles or highly automated vehicles (HAV). Under time pressure, subjects showed a significantly higher gap acceptance during merging situations when interacting with HAV. This confirmed our original hypothesis that when interacting with HAV, drivers would exploit the HAV's technological advantages and defensive programming in time-critical situations.