Workshop on Exploring Interfaces for Enhanced Automation Assistance for Improving Manual Driving Abilities

Important – sign-up

Sign up in the list here to indicate which of the use cases you are interested in and want to work on during the workshop. You may also propose a use case that is not on the list. You may also indicate this during the workshop but this will help us save time.
Please watch the introductory video below for an overview of the proposed use cases. Also please note that this does not substitute the registration process – a valid registration for AutoUI 21 is necessary in order to attend this workshop! 

About

With continually advancing automation capabilities in vehicles, there is increasing potential for these capabilities to be used not only as stopgaps towards full automation but to enhance humans’ manual driving capabilities during this transition phase and beyond. By employing smart automation assistance (e.g., highlighting of relevant roadside information, maneuver interventions and corrections), it might even be possible to enable automation assisted “manual” driving for those, who might not be able to drive otherwise (older adults, individuals with impairments). In this workshop, we intend to explore this problem together with the participants and identify potentials for automation assistance to enhance manual driving performance, and what in-vehicle interfaces can contribute in this regard.

Workshop Objectives

The main intent of the workshop is to advance into the idea that automated driving does not only look like a super intelligent vehicle that dispenses with the driver, but that it also covers wider concepts where human and automation drive together, exploiting the benefits of both. The workshop aims at:

• Exploring the potential of automation assisted “manual” driving to enhance human capabilities.
• Identifying different automation support strategies for manual driving.
• Evaluating challenges of the concept of “driving together”. Benefits and drawbacks.
• Fostering collaboration towards enhanced automation assistance for manual driving.

Participation

Due to the virtual setting, registration in advance is mandatory. Participants are not expected to send position papers as the workshop will be an interactive session. However, all participants are encouraged to check the pre-workshop material as a preparation step to improve the quality of the discussions. The workshop will be conducted virtually, with the possibility of having multiple sessions in case the number of participants allows for breakout groups. The workshop is planned to be held on September 9th at 17:00 UTC+2.

At the conference

The workshop will be held online as a conference call (via  Webex) with collaboration platform support (Miro). At the workshop, the participants will be greeted, followed by a short introductory round for the participants. Then, a condensed introduction to the workshop agenda, topic, and example use case outline are provided by the organisers. After that, the interactive sessions are prepared and explained to the participants. These introductory and preparatory sessions are scheduled for 10 minutes each in order to also allow for questions from the participants.

The interactive session will proceed in two parts: in the first part, the participants will be divided into breakout groups of 4-5 participants each. Each breakout group is moderated by one of the workshop co-organisers. The group sessions will last 30 minutes, during which the participants explore and envision how automation could support manual driving for the selected use case, respectively how new interaction concepts for automation support for manual driving could work. This will be organized as a moderated brainstorming session, where participants call out and discuss their ideas, which will be noted, structured, and summarized by each group moderator on the collaboration platform.

In the following breakout consolidation session (30 minutes), each moderator changes to another group and briefly presents the results of their group’s brainstorming and discussion. Based on this, participants are encouraged to provide their feedback, add new ideas, and discuss advantages or disadvantages of the approach. This will again be noted by the moderator. After 15 minutes, the moderator again changes to another group and the procedure will be the same. This approach allows to iterate and refine the ideas and concepts with an adequate amount of time and with high involvement of participants.

The wrap up (10 minutes) serves to provide buffer time in case of particularly active discussions, as well as a summary by the workshop organisers and information regarding the dissemination of the results on the website.

Organizers

Sandra Trösterer is a Senior Researcher at VIRTUAL VEHICLE Research GmbH (Graz, Austria). She has a background in Psychology and has been working at the Chair of Human-Machine Systems (TU Berlin, Germany) and the Center for Human-Computer Interaction (University of Salzburg, Austria) before joining VIRTUAL VEHICLE in 2019. She has been involved in several national and international projects related to human factors in the automotive domain. In her work she particularly focuses on investigating user interfaces, requirements, behavior, and experiences in the field of automated driving, connected driving, and driver distraction.

Joseba Sarabia is a research engineer on automated driving and control at Tecnalia, Basque Research and Technology Alliance (BRTA), since 2019. Industrial engineer at the University of the Basque Country UPV/EHU, he got a master on automatics, robotics and control (2019). Currently, he is a second year PhD student in vehicle human interaction for shared control, and he is working in European Projects related to human-centered automated driving and driver-automation cooperation, specifically in vehicle control and decision-making systems.

Sergio Diaz Researcher on Automated Driving & Control at Tecnalia Research and Innovation, since 2018. Mechanical Eng. at Simon Bolivar University (USB), Venezuela (1993). Ph.D. (1999) at Texas A&M University. Full professor at USB (1993-2018), President of FUNINDES-USB R&D Foundation, Head of Machinery Dynamics Lab, and advisor of ASME, SAE, and SOLAR sections. Recipient of international awards as ”STLE Burt Newkirk Award”, ”SAE Ralph Teetor Educational Award” and ”F-SAE Carroll Smith Mentors Cup”.

Jakub Sypniewski is an Interaction Designer and Researcher at the Center for Human-Computer Interaction at the University of Salzburg. His research is focused around  lighting as persuasive technology in various contexts including autonomous and semi-autonomous vehicles. He is currently pursuing an PhD at the University of Salzburg.

Dr Ruth Madigan is a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for Transport Studies, University of Leeds. She has a background in applied psychological research, and completed her PhD on driver training and hazard handling at University College Cork in 2014. Since joining ITS in 2016, Ruth has worked on five EU projects investigating road user interactions with automated vehicle systems – AdaptIVe, CityMobil2, interACT, L3Pilot, and Hi-Drive; along with conducting DfT-funded research into the use of head-mounted displays for driver training. Her main interests lie in studying the interactions between drivers, external road users, and automated vehicles, using a variety of methods such as experimental studies, questionnaire data, and qualitative video analysis techniques.