Biblio

Mental workload is a popular concept in ergonomics as it provides an intuitive explanation why exceedingly cognitive task demands result in a decrease in task performance and increase the risk of fatal incidents while driving. At the same time, affective states such as frustration, also play a role in traffic safety as they increase the tendency for speedy and aggressive driving and may even degrade cognitive processing capacities. To reduce accidents due to dangerous effects of degraded cognitive processing capacities and affective biases causing human errors, it is necessary to continuously assess multiple user states simultaneously to better understand potential interactions. In two previous studies, we measured brain activity with functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) for separate brain based prediction of working memory load (WML) (Unni et al., 2017) and frustration levels (Ihme et al. submitted) while driving. Here, we report results from a study designed to predict simultaneously manipulated WML and frustration using data driven machine learning approaches from whole-head fNIRS brain activation measurements. 

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.
 

When designing driving simulator studies, sometimes high efforts have to be spent to make them successful. Some drivers may not behave as desired, leading to situations unforeseen by the developers. When looking at multi-driver studies, where multiple drivers need to interact with each other in one virtual environment, the probability of performing a successful study is even lower, as the behaviour of the human drivers cannot be fully controlled. While [Oel15b] already proposed guidelines for the creation of such scenarios, this paper describes how the probability of success can be monitored and even enhanced during scenario execution. Therefore, it describes an approach where the probability of success is modelled and where the scenario is dynamically adapted to provide higher rates of success.
 

Driver assist features such as adaptive cruise control (ACC) and highway assistants are becoming increasingly prevalent on commercially available vehicles. These systems are typically designed for safety and rider comfort. However, these systems are often not designed with the quality of the overall traffic flow in mind. For such a system to be beneficial to the traffic flow, it must be string stable and minimize the inter-vehicle spacing to maximize throughput, while still being safe. We propose a methodology to select autonomous driving system parameters that are both safe and string stable using the existing control framework already implemented on commercially available ACC vehicles. Optimal parameter values are selected via model-based optimization for an example highway assistant controller with path planning.

One of the major challenges for the automotive industry will be the release and validation of cooperative and automated vehicles. The immense driving distance that needs to be covered for a conventional validation process requires the development of new testing procedures. Further, due to limited market penetration in the beginning, the driving behavior of other human traffic participants, regarding a mixed traffic environment, will have a significant impact on the functionality of these vehicles.In this paper, a generic simulation-based toolchain for the model-in-the-loop identification of critical scenarios will be introduced. The proposed methodology allows the identification of critical scenarios with respect to the vehicle development process. The current development status of cooperative and automated vehicle determines the availability of testable simulation models, software, and components.The identification process is realized by a coupled simulation framework. A combination of a vehicle dynamics simulation that includes a digital prototype of the cooperative and automated vehicle, a traffic simulation that provides the surrounding environment, and a cooperation simulation including cooperative features, is used to establish a suitable comprehensive simulation environment. The behavior of other traffic participants is considered in the traffic simulation environment.The criticality of the scenarios is determined by appropriate metrics. Within the context of this paper, both standard safety metrics and newly developed traffic quality metrics are used for evaluation. Furthermore, we will show how the use of these new metrics allows for investigating the impact of cooperative and automated vehicles on traffic. The identified critical scenarios are used as an input for X-in-the-Loop methods, test benches, and proving ground tests to achieve an even more precise comparison to real-world situations. As soon as the vehicle development process is in a mature state, the digital prototype becomes a “digital twin” of the cooperative and automated vehicle.

In the future, mixed traffic Highly Automated Vehicles (HAV) will have to resolve interactions with human operated traffic. A particular problem for HAVs is the detection of human states influencing safety, critical decisions, and driving behavior of humans. We demonstrate the value proposition of neurophysiological sensors and driver models for optimizing performance of HAVs under safety constraints in mixed traffic applications.