Bringing a Vehicle to a Controlled Stop: Effectiveness of a Dual-Control Scheme for Identifying Driver Drowsiness and Executing Safety Control under Hands-off Partial Driving Automation

Abstract

This study proposes a strategy to bring the vehicle to a controlled stop if the driver fails to supervise the partial driving automation. In scenarios where the driving context changes, the system provides information on the object/event detection and response, and it observes the driver's response (i.e., pressing a button). If the driver fails to respond to the given information within 15 seconds, the system implements a first-stage control that reduces the speed to 50 km/h. If the driver does not perform the accelerator action within 30 seconds after first-stage control, the system determines that “the driver failed to supervise the partial driving automation system”. To demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed system for identifying driver drowsiness and implementing deceleration control, a total of 26 drivers participated in an experiment. In 12 among 23 instances in which first-stage control was implemented, the system could successfully determine that “the driver failed to supervise the partial driving automation.” In 8 of the 12 instances, the vehicle was brought to a complete stop. We conclude that the system could be used effectively for safety control and for identifying the driver state.