Exploratory Design of a Highly Automated System for Entering the Expressway

Abstract

This paper describes an exploratory design approach for designing assistance and automation systems for vehicles. The exploratory design process covers the specification of the design within the design team, the assessment of user expectations and the testing of prototypes in a usability assessment during the course of the exploratory design process. It is shown how this process is applied to the design of a highly automated system that supports the driver when entering the expressway, developed in the context of the German project IMoST. The paper gives an overview of the prototype that was developed, reports the expectation of users regarding assistance for expressway entering and summarizes the results of the usability study.