As autonomous vehicles become more prevalent in urban traffic settings, the safety of vulnerable road users, predominantly pedestrians, must be placed in high regard relative to the design of the autonomous vehicle's (AV's) external human machine interface (HMI). Traditionally, there exist communication methods between drivers and pedestrians, such as hand gestures, eye contact, and verbal cues that convey the driver's awareness of the pedestrian's presence. However, with autonomous vehicles, there is a shift in communicative responsibility from the driver to the vehicle itself. It is the vehicle's responsibility to intuitively and clearly indicate its actions to the pedestrian. This research analyzes the factors contributing to AV skepticism and the ways in which the visual aspect of an AV's external HMI can be improved from traditional vehicle designs to accommodate visually impaired pedestrians. This was achieved by performing a study on 27 participants varying in age, gender, and vision impairment type. The study includes a survey and interview portion. Findings indicate that yellow and blue colors are viewed as most welcoming and memorable. It is suggested that these colors be used in the projected light system of the external HMI design. Quantitative results indicate that there is a moderate degree of correlation between the following: the use of cruise control and vision impairment severity (negative correlation), a participant's willingness to ride in an AV and vision impairment levels (positive correlation). The study also found a low degree of correlation in a participants willingness to ride in an AV and their trust in AVs. Based on these findings and under the assumption than an external HMI is needed on the AV, it is recommended that the external HMI contain a light projection system on the vehicle's front body. Based on qualitative results, the light projection system should use a teal color light and project a directional arrow onto the ground when identifying a pedestrian in its path while turning. Intuitive signals such as these help ensure pedestrian safety and promote trust and acceptance of the use of autonomous vehicles on public roads.

Background. Today autonomous vehicles (AV) are a well-debated topic and manystudies try to understand or solve different ethical dilemmas concerning self-driving.There are legal issues and liability concerns that require clarity from a governmentfor any type of AV to operate on the road. The Swedish transport agency has notallowed autonomous cars because they do not fulfill the requirements to be classifiedas a safe vehicle and there are only a few studies in Sweden that focus on this topic.  Objectives. This thesis will investigate previous research in this area to find outwhat are the most common topics that are a concern to people when it comes toAVs. Based on the findings from the literature review, a survey will be distributed,containing both qualitative and quantitative questions. Methods. A literature review has been performed to set up the base work for thesurvey. The questions to the survey were based on the findings from the literaturereview thereafter a pilot survey was distributed. The result from the survey will beanalysed by categorizing themes and keywords from the respondents. Results. The literature review can reveal that the most concerning categories according to people are safety, security, legal aspects & liability, and cost. The respondents to the survey indicate that safety is a high prioritized topic together with anylegal and liability aspects. The result also shows that there is a high expectationfrom the car manufacturers to make the vehicle secure from any attacks. As opposedto other research the Swedish respondents in this survey do not show much concernwhen it comes to costs.  Conclusions. A common theme from the respondents shows that safety must beprioritized before any AVs can be released on the road, with no exceptions. Many ofthe respondents show that they trust the Swedish government and its legal systemwhich indicates that the acceptance of AVs could correlate with an acceptance fromthe Swedish transport agency. Though the respondents in the survey do seem to trustin the companies ability to provide a secure vehicle there are still some concernedabout the possibility of being a victim of a cyber attack. There are no concernsabout the cost of the autonomous technology amongst the respondents but it is notevaluated why and that leaves those results open for interpretation.

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The urban population is growing at an exponential rate throughout the world leading to the problems related to swift and speedy mobility or issues caused by convectional mobility options. This study illustrates and explores the new ways to transport people specially taking into account the self-driving cars concept and discusses the concept of mobility 4.0 (smart / intelligent mobility) and briefly highlights the technological aspects of autonomous vehicles, adaptation advantages and progress in laws and legislations of autonomous vehicle. The study is primarily qualitative and relies on the work of previous researcher, technical reports and blogs but the part of this study is quantitative where empirical data was collected from the experts in a conference held by BBG Austria. The result of the studies shows adaptation readiness of Austrian professional market and business prospects associated with autonomous vehicles Moreover, different business models are suggested, which could be adopted to incorporate the driverless vehicles in day-to-day life of an individual living in urban environment. The models basically suggest that the adaptation of the technology would help curbing transport externalities especially external cost associated to transportation of each individual; which includes congestion, accident, infrastructure costs and environmental costs which are incurred by least efficient conventional cars and would also help shrinking the diseases like premature mortality, aggravation of respiratory as well as cardiovascular disease and sleep disturbance which are the result of city level congestion and pollution. (author's abstract) / Series: Schriftenreihe des Instituts für Transportwirtschaft und Logistik - Verkehr

The future of mobility is changing at an exponential rate, as every day passes it moves closer to the goal of complete autonomy, therefore, it is safe to say that the adaptation of self-driving cars in near future is no more a matter of science fiction. Keeping in view the rapid evolution of mobility, this study tries to enlighten and compile the importance of autonomous vehicles in our daily life by highlighting monetary and societal advantages of adaptation. Moreover, it analysis the Austrian expert's opinion on the topic of adaptation of the self- driving cars and business prospects with autonomous vehicles for current businesses. The data on these two questions was collected in a workshop using Delphi method, where experts from varied professional backgrounds participated. But mainly the participants of the controlled group were representatives of public procurement, energy and automobile industry/sector. After a detailed presentation and discussion over the topic, the participants were asked for their views on forth mentioned two questions. Their opinions were recorded and visualized on a custom made graph and further analyzed using the descriptive statistical tool. At the end of the question and answer session a vast majority of experts, which is approximately 80%, thought that there is a good possibility of adaptation of autonomous vehicles in near future. But on the other hand relatively less percentage of experts were confident about the bright future for current businesses in automobile industry; They argued that the current business decorum would change dramatically in a couple of decades and this would be the question of survival of the fittest and smartest.

The great advancements in technology are transforming cars into the next digital frontier, redefining people’s lifestyle around mobility. The thesis intended to push further on this trend, exploring new interaction paradigms and creating delightful experiences in future self-driving vehicles. With a cross-discipline scope, the formula is to blend digital information into physical form and material, blurring the boundary between the car’s interior and interface. As the conclusion, I learned that a constant harmony between virtual and physical world is the key for designers to create natural and intuitive experiences with technology. The final result is an autonomous interior concept with multi-sensory user experiences. The core interface, as the physical manifestation of the car’s artificial intelligence, interact with users emotionally, offering its amazing capability in assistance. The in-car environment is evolved with sensors and displays, providing intuitive access to dedicated functions and immersive content.

Wide spread consumer adoption of self-driving cars (SDC) is predicated on a level of trust between humans and the autonomous vehicle. Despite advances being made in the technical abilities of SDCs, recent studies indicate that people are negatively predisposed toward utilizing autonomous vehicles. To bridge the gap between consumer skepticism and adoption of SDCs, research is needed to better understand the evolution of trust between humans and growing autonomous technologies. The question of mainstream acceptance and requisite trust is explored through integration of virtual reality SDC simulator, an electroencephalographic (EEG) recorder, and a new approach for real-time trust measurement between passengers and SDCs. An experiment on fifty human subjects was conducted where participants were exposed to scenarios designed to induce positive and negative trust responses. Emotional state was quantified by the EEG beta wave to alpha wave power ratio, and participants self-reported their levels of trust in the SDC after each segment. / Includes bibliography. / Thesis (M.S.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2018. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection

For a little over the past decade since the DARPA Grand Challenge in 2004 and the more successful Urban Challenge in 2007 autonomous vehicles have seen a surge in popularity with car manufacturers, and companies such as Google and Uber. Light Detection And Ranging (LiDAR) has been one of the major sensors in use to sense for acting on the surrounding environment instead of the classic radar which has a much narrower field of vision. However the cost of the higher end 3D LiDAR systems which started seeing use during the DARPA challenges still have the high cost of $70,000 a piece which is an issue when trying to design a consumer friendly system on a family car. This work aims to investigate alternate 2D LiDAR systems to the costly systems currently in use in many prototypes to find a cost efficient alternative that can detect and track obstacles in front of a vehicle. The introduction begins by summarizing some related prior works, particularly papers from after the Grand Challenge as well as some about the competition itself. Detection and tracking methods for point clouds generated by the LiDAR are explored including ways to search through the data in an efficient manner to meet real-time constraints. Some of the trade-offs in going from a 3D system to a 2D system and examined along with how some of the drawbacks can be mitigated.

Automotive manufacturers are competing to be the first to introduce customer-ready autonomous vehicles. Some manufacturers are claiming to launch their first self-driving cars as early as 2020. Which all sounds very good and futuristic; however, the question arises, are customers even ready to adopt this new technological advancement? Therefore, this pilot study is aimed at finding out the answer to this question in the Austrian market. This study discovers the standpoint of Austrian consumers concerning the acceptance of self-driving cars for daily usage and gives an overview of the current point of view regarding autonomous vehicles (AVs). The data for this study was collected using an online, user-friendly, Likert scale survey. The collected data were processed and analyzed for empirical significance in SPSS using Spearman's rank correlation and the Mann-Whitney U test supported by descriptive analysis. The results of the study indicate that Austrian consumers are well aware of autonomous vehicles and their technology. However, they have specific concerns about reliability, cybersecurity, and futuristic car-sharing models. Therefore, these concerns about AVs should be addressed by auto manufactures in order to gain consumers' trust and sell them a new form of mobility.