Formalizing Human-Machine Communication in the Context of Autonomous Vehicles Grant uri icon

abstract

  • While driving behavior is generally governed by the nature and driving objectives of the driver, there are many situations (typically in crowded traffic conditions) where tacit communication between the drivers and pedestrians govern the overall driving behavior, significantly enhancing driving safety. The project will intend to study and formalize the communication pattern between human drivers and pedestrians, as also investigate effective communication mechanisms between an autonomous vehicle and humans. Current autonomous vehicles engage in decision making that is primarily driven by on-board or external sensory information, and do not explicitly consider communication with pedestrians. The project will incorporate the formalized communications from this study into decision making algorithms of an autonomous vehicle. Use of the results of this study would lead to improved safety of both autonomous vehicles as well as conventional vehicles.

date/time interval

  • 2017 - 2018