NSF-BSF: HCC: Cultural Differences in Pedestrian-Autonomous Vehicle Interaction

Cornell University, Ithaca NY

Investigators

Abstract

Pedestrians communicate and negotiate with drivers implicitly and explicitly through their movement, as well as verbal communication, body language, and gaze. Mismatches in perception, understanding and action between road users can easily cause accidents. The advent of autonomy will necessitate a more explicit understanding of the complex manner in which vehicles and pedestrians interact. This research seeks to model how drivers implicitly communicate and coordinate with pedestrians on the road, and to assess how these driving interactions differ across cultures. The scientific contribution of this research will be new models of driving interaction that characterize the implicit and explicit communication and negotiation patterns that occur between road users. This research is critical to enabling autonomous vehicles to sense, respond and adapt to regional road interaction norms, and to improve safety and trust in automation. This work benefits society by considering different cultures in the development of advanced technologies in order to reduce risks associated with poor design, cultural bias or unnecessary on-road testing. The scientific contribution of this research will be new models of driving interaction that characterize the implicit and explicit communication and negotiation patterns that occur between road users. The project incorporates the collection and analysis of naturalistic data of pedestrian-vehicle interactions in the US, Israel and Denmark, the use of virtual reality simulation for experimental study using controlled scenarios with which to elicit interactive behaviors between pedestrians and drivers and the development a pedestrian-driver situation awareness model from the data collected. The team will actively engage automotive industry and academic researchers to validate models and to create a global database of pedestrian-vehicle interaction behavior. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.