Page 16 - IAV Digital Magazine #555

iAV - Antelope Valley Digital Magazine
Engineers Gave A Car Eyes To Make Future Roads Safer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JtK319ySzP0
In one of the more unusual experiments we’ve seen recently, researchers attached a large pair of car- toonish googly eyes to the front of a small, self-driving vehicle – and it turns out that this kind of anthropo- morphic tweak could actually improve pedestrian safety.
A roving pair of peep- ers on the front of dri- verless vehicles could, according to the researchers, give people standing by the road a better idea of whether they’ve been seen. That’s one useful bit of infor- mation to have when it comes to determin- ing the perfect moment to cross in front of oncoming traf- fic.
“If the car is not look- ing at the pedestrian, this implies that the car does not recog- nize the pedestri-
an,” write the researchers. “Thus, pedestrians can judge that they should not cross the street, thereby avoiding potential traffic acci- dents.”
Based on the research, this sort of ‘gazing car’ has the potential to cut down on the number of traf- fic accidents, as well as helping pedestri- ans feel safer.
For the purposes of this study the researchers used a golf buggy rigged to appear as if no one was inside. A pair of large, swiveling eyes on the front were con-
trolled by researchers, but in the future could be controlled by the car’s AI on an actual self- driving vehicle.
To keep the 18 partic- ipants safe, experi- ments were conduct- ed in virtual reality. The volunteers – nine men and nine women – were asked to decide whether or not to cross the road as the cart approached. Four scenarios were tested in total; two when the cart was fit- ted with eyes, and two when it wasn’t.
The researchers measured how often people hesitated to cross when it was in fact safe to do so, and how often they opted to cross when it was dangerous.
Overall, the presence of the eyes led to safer and smoother crossing experiences for the participants.
However, there was a gender split in the results. For men, the eyes only really helped in dangerous situations, warning them to pause when they might otherwise proceed. For women, the eyes boosted con- fidence by signaling it was safe to cross.
“The results suggest- ed a clear difference between genders, which was very sur- prising and unexpect- ed,” says one of the researchers, Chia- Ming Chang from the University of Tokyo in Japan.
“While other factors like age and back- ground might have also influenced the participants’ reac- tions, we believe this is an important point, as it shows that differ- ent road users may have different behav- iors and needs, that require different com- munication ways in our future self-driving world.”
A self-driving world may look significantly different in all kinds of ways. Both passen- gers inside autonomous vehicles and other road users around them are
going to have to recalibrate their behavior in certain respects.
While oversized car- toon eyes won’t nec- essarily be adopted as a future feature of autonomous vehicles, the study is a good example of the type of research that’s needed to better understand how pedestrians and autonomous cars interact before they hit the road.
Ultimately the aim is to keep everyone as safe as possible, if and when autonomous driving becomes the norm. At the moment, it seems that’s a long way off yet – giving scientists more time to look at the resulting implica- tions.
“There is not enough investigation into the interaction between self-driving cars and the people around them, such as pedes- trians,” says computer scientist Takeo Igarashi, from the University of Tokyo.
“So, we need more investigation and effort into such inter- action to bring safety and assurance to society regarding self- driving cars.”
iAV - Antelope Valley Digital Magazine