Intermediate results of the Human Factors work in the EU-Project HAVEit: Interaction design and simulator testing of the Joint System for highly automated vehicles

Abstract

With increasing technical feasibilities in the automobile domain the automation of driving tasks expands. The EU-Project HAVEit aims at the realization of the long-term vision of highly automated driving for intelligent transport. This paper focuses on the interaction design for highly automated vehicles and presents selected results of a usability assessment conducted in HAVEit. First, the paper presents the key interaction design principles that were developed together with the HAVEit partners. One essential issue of highly automated driving are the transitions between different assistance and automation levels. Here, selected results of a usability assessment testing a first prototype with eight users are presented. For normal transitions the results showed overall good subjective ratings regarding the ease of understanding and handling quality. Some usability problems were detected with one of the tested switching devices. For automation initiated transitions (take-over requests) some problems occurred with a too conservative interaction design for take-over situations. Refused transitions were always recognized and handled in a safe way by all participants. The overall acceptance of highly automated driving was already quite high.