A Study on e-HMI of Automated Vehicles Enable Two-way Communications between Pedestrian and Automated Vehicles

Abstract

As a driverless vehicle become widely used, pedestrians cannot communicate with the driverless vehicle using eye contact or gesture. Therefore, pedestrians cannot understand behavior of the driverless vehicle. In the present study, we attempted to verify the effect of e-HMI to enable two-way communications between the pedestrians and the driverless vehicles at unsignalized crosswalk to convey the intention of approaching driverless vehicles. Three types of e-HMI were proposed as follows; "Icon" is that encourage pedestrians to cross the street, "Front brake light" is that signal deceleration, and "Gaze-based Icon" is that take two-way communication into account. We conducted with 14 participants to evaluate the deceleration recognition time and crossing decision time for approaching driverless vehicles under seven information conditions displayed by the driverless vehicles, which included no information and combined three proposed types of e-HMIS. Results of the experiment, the deceleration recognition times of the approaching vehicle by displaying “Front brake light” were shorter than those by other information conditions. The crossing decision times in case of “Gaze-based Icon” were shorter than those for other information.