Increasingly, many of today’s vehicles offer Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) partially automated driving (PAD) and a limited number of SAE conditionally automated vehicles (CAD) are being developed. Vehicles with PAD systems support the driver through longitudinal and lateral control inputs. However, during PAD the driver must be prepared to take control of the vehicle at any time, requiring them to monitor the environment and PAD system. In contrast, during CAD the driver is not required to monitor the environment or system but must take control when prompted by the system. Given the ability of CAD vehicles to operate in PAD and manual driving, it is important to consider drivers’ mode awareness, that is, their ability to follow the state of the automated system and predict the implications of this status for vehicle control and monitoring responsibilities. In addition, since CAD does not require drivers to keep their visual or attentional resources on the driving task or environment, drivers are allowed to perform secondary tasks (i.e., non-driving related tasks (NDRTs)). Given that drivers will freely choose what types of tasks they do during CAD it is important to build an understanding of whether drivers will choose to engage in NDRTs in the CAD state, and drivers’ ability to perform NDRTs during CAD.
To investigate driver’s mode awareness after transitions between modes, their willingness to engage in NDRTs, and their ability to perform scheduled smartphone NDRTs, an on-road experiment was conducted using the Wizard-of-Oz (WoZ) method to simulate a vehicle capable of Assisted Driving (similar to PAD) and Automated Driving (similar to CAD). A total of 36 drivers completed the on-road experiment, and experienced stable periods of manual driving, Assisted driving, and Automated driving, as well as transitions between these modes. After each transition, participants’ mode awareness was measured. Drivers’ performance of NDRTs and behavioral adaptation during Automated Driving was assessed by asking them to complete scheduled tasks on their smartphones. To measure driver willingness to engage in unscripted NDRTs during automated driving, participants were allowed to freely choose to engage in smartphone NDRTs between the scheduled tasks. It was hypothesized that drivers’ mode awareness of Assisted and Automated Driving and their willingness to engage and perform NDRTs during Automated Driving would increase with system exposure over the five planned activation periods of Automated Driving.
Results from a mixed-model ANOVA showed that participants’ mode awareness of their role in Automated Driving statistically significantly increased from the first activation to the subsequent activations. There was no statistically significant effect of activation period on drivers’ willingness to engage in NDRTs, as measured by the mean percentage of time drivers chose to engage in NDRTs during Automated Driving, or driver’s ability to perform tasks, as measured by the mean task completion time of the experimenter administered smartphone NDRTs. The mean number of participants who chose to engage in an NDRT (73.8%) and the percentage of time spent on NDRTs per Automated Driving activation period (M=20.37%; SD=23.9), indicated that drivers were willing to engage in NDRTs during Automated Driving. In addition, drivers showed a high level of task performance, completing 95% of the scheduled NDRTs correctly. Altogether, these results suggest that drivers are willing to engage in and perform NDRTs during Automated Driving and that driver behavior during Automated Driving is consistent and stable during a two-hour exposure period. Finally, the findings indicate that requiring the participant to control the vehicle manually for a brief period prior to transitioning to a level of automation that allows the driver to take their visual and attentional resources away from the roadway environment results in statistically significantly less NDRT engagement compared to when participants transition directly to this level of automation. Overall, the findings from this study have methodological and potential system design implications that can help guide the future research on and design of automated driving systems. / M.S. / Increasingly, many of today’s vehicles offer automated driving technology (i.e., Assisted Driving) that support the driver through steering, braking, and accelerating the vehicle. However, during this level of automation the driver must be prepared to take control of the vehicle, requiring them to monitor the environment and the automated driving system. In addition, a limited number of vehicles offer automated driving technology (i.e., Automated Driving) that controls the vehicle and does not require the driver to monitor the environment or system, however, the driver must take control when prompted by the system. Vehicles capable of Automated Driving can also operate in Assisted and manual driving modes.
Given the ability of Automated Driving vehicles to operate in Assisted and manual driving, it is important to consider driver’s ability to follow and predict the behavior of the automated system. In addition, since Automated Driving does not require drivers to keep their eyes or mind on driving or monitoring the road, drivers are allowed to perform secondary tasks. Since drivers are free to choose what types of tasks they do during Automated Driving, it is important to understand whether drivers will choose to engage in Secondary tasks, and their ability to perform these tasks during Automated Driving.
To investigate driver’s mode awareness after transitions between modes, their willingness to engage in tasks, and their ability to perform scheduled smartphone tasks, an on-road experiment was conducted using the Wizard-of-Oz (WoZ) method. The WoZ method uses a concealed human to simulate an automated computer system, in this case an automated driving system. A total of 36 drivers completed the on-road experiment. The participants experienced periods of manual driving, Assisted driving, and Automated driving, as well as transitions between these modes. After each transition, participants’ knowledge of who/what was controlling the vehicle and the driver’s role in the current automated mode was measured. Drivers’ performance of tasks during Automated Driving was assessed by asking them to complete scheduled tasks on their smartphones. To measure driver willingness to engage in tasks during automated driving, participants were allowed to freely choose to engage in smartphone tasks between the scheduled tasks. It was hypothesized that drivers’ mode awareness of Assisted and Automated Driving and their willingness to engage and perform NDRTs during Automated Driving would increase with system exposure over the five planned activation periods of Automated Driving.
Results showed that participants’ ability to identify their role in Automated Driving increased from the first time they experienced the system to the subsequent times. There was no change in drivers’ willingness to engage in tasks or drivers’ ability to perform tasks as they gained more experience with the Automated Driving system. However, the level of task engagement indicated that drivers were immediately willing to engage in tasks during Automated Driving. Drivers also showed a high-level of task performance. Taken together, these findings indicate that drivers are willing to engage in and perform non-driving related tasks during Automated Driving. These findings can help guide future research focused on automated systems and the design of automated driving systems.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:VTETD/oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/107820 |
| Date | 15 December 2021 |
| Creators | Britten, Nicholas |
| Contributors | Industrial and Systems Engineering, Perez, Miguel A., Gabbard, Joseph L., Kurokawa, Ko, Klauer, Charlie |
| Publisher | Virginia Tech |
| Source Sets | Virginia Tech Theses and Dissertation |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Format | ETD, application/pdf, application/pdf |
| Rights | Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International, http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/ |
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