Abstract

This article investigates the simultaneous interaction between an automated vehicle (AV) and its passenger, and between the same AV and a human driver of another vehicle. For this purpose, we have implemented a multi-vehicle simulation consisting of two driving simulators, one for the AV and one for the manual vehicle. The considered scenario is a road bottleneck with a double-parked vehicle either on one side of the road or on both sides of the road where an AV and a simultaneously oncoming human driver negotiate the right of way. The AV communicates to its passenger via the internal automation human–machine interface (HMI) and it concurrently displays the right of way to the human driver via an external HMI. In addition to the regular encounters, this paper analyzes the effect of an automation failure, where the AV first communicates to yield the right of way and then changes its strategy and passes through the bottleneck first despite oncoming traffic. The research questions the study aims to answer are what methods should be used for the implementation of multi-vehicle simulations with one AV, and if there is an added benefit of this multi-vehicle simulation compared to single-driver simulator studies. The results show an acceptable synchronicity for using traffic lights as basic synchronization and a distance control as the detail synchronization method. The participants had similar passing times in the multi-vehicle simulation compared to a previously conducted single-driver simulation. Moreover, there was a lower crash rate in the multi-vehicle simulation during the automation failure. Concluding the results, the proposed method seems to be an appropriate solution to implement multi-vehicle simulation with one AV. Additionally, multi-vehicle simulation offers a benefit if more than one human affects the interaction within a scenario.

Highlights

  • A current research focus in the context of automated driving is human–machine interface (HMI)

  • The current operation design domain (ODD) in partially automated driving is limited to highways, since these are characterized by a lower complexity compared to urban areas

  • Since the present work investigates the interaction between an automated vehicle (AV) and a human driver at bottlenecks, new opportunities arise to achieve the synchronous arrival of both road users via the ADS

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Summary

Objectives

One challenge of multi-vehicle simulation is that the participants have to approach the investigated scenario at the same time in order to ensure controlled interaction. Various publications have already taken up this challenge. All these studies investigated scenarios without automated road users. Since the present work investigates the interaction between an AV and a human driver at bottlenecks, new opportunities arise to achieve the synchronous arrival of both road users via the ADS and its implemented longitudinal control. This creates new challenges in terms of reproducibility and comprehensibility. This publication aims at the technical implementation and evaluation of such a method with an automated road user in a multi-vehicle simulation. The results are compared with the results of a single-driver study on eHMI design to identify the relevant use cases where multi-vehicle simulation offers an added benefit

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