Ford uses ‘invisible driver’ to study reactions of pedestrians, drivers to autonomous vehicle
14 Sep 2017
In order to study the reactions of pedestrians and other drivers to a driverless vehicle, researcher Andy Schaudt disguised himself as a car seat. Auto major, Ford approached a half- dozen Virginia Tech Transportation Institute researchers, who spent August driving 'invisibly' around Arlington. Driving over 1,800 miles, they collected 150 hours of 360-degree video from six cameras mounted on their gray van.
One of Schaudt's colleagues was somewhat slow to get going on a light turning green, prompting another motorist to speed around to the right and begin to yell. On seeing nobody in the car, he shouted out loud ''there's nobody driving this car,'' according to Shaudt.
He added, aggressive drivers use ''communication methods that are not exactly required for navigation.'' It comes as a jaw dropping moment for them when they find there is nobody there to scream at.
Ford is trying to devise a ''standard visual language'' to allow its self-driving cars to communicate with humans. It plans to use a bar of flashing white lights on the windshield to replace the little nods and go-ahead half-waves that help the traffic flow smoothly.
The experiment was proposed by Ford engineer John Shutko, who has been pushing the idea of the light bar with colleagues from other car companies around the world. Ford does not see any competitive advantage in the research, but instead wants to share its findings to improve safety and make people feel comfortable with driverless vehicles, he said.
The light bar above the van's windshield would show what the vehicle would do next. Slow blinking would mean, the car is stopping, while fast blinking would mean it is starting. A solid white light would mean it was, driving around all on its own.
"In virtual reality studies that we've run, people don't understand at first exposure," says Shutko, www.wired.com reported. He added, but once they see the new signals a few times, the study showed, they would catch on.
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