Use of Haptic Shared Control in Highly Automated Driving Systems

Abstract

In automated driving, there are certain situations in which the user and automated system must interact. For example, at the SAE J 3016 (2016) LoDA 3 level of driving automation, a human operator is expected to intervene in the operations of an automated driving system (ADS) in response to an intervention request issued by the ADS. Haptic shared control (HSC) is a control approach in which a user and an automated system interact congruently in a perception-action cycle; performing dynamic tasks by inputting force from both agents to a single operation input terminal. HSC is thought to be effective in situations in which users interact with a highly automated system. The present study discusses the possible applications of HSC in an ADS in order to enhance ADS-user interaction. As an example, the application of HSC to a smooth control transition between the ADS and the operator is discussed in detail. A shared-authority mode, which connects the automated and manual driving modes through HSC is proposed in order to achieve smooth transition by bridging gaps that exist between automated driving and human control. A driving simulator experiment demonstrates the effectiveness of the proposed method.