Towards cooperative guidance and control of highly automated vehicles: H-Mode and Conduct-by-Wire

Abstract

This article provides a general ergonomic framework of cooperative guidance and control for vehicles with an emphasis on the cooperation between a human and a highly automated vehicle. In the twenty-first century, mobility and automation technologies are increasingly fused. In the sky, highly automated aircraft are flying with a high safety record. On the ground, a variety of driver assistance systems are being developed, and highly automated vehicles with increasingly autonomous capabilities are becoming possible. Human-centred automation has paved the way for a better cooperation between automation and humans. How can these highly automated systems be structured so that they can be easily understood, how will they cooperate with the human? The presented research was conducted using the methods of iterative build-up and refinement of framework by triangulation, i.e. by instantiating and testing the framework with at least two derived concepts and prototypes. This article sketches a general, conceptual ergonomic framework of cooperative guidance and control of highly automated vehicles, two concepts derived from the framework, prototypes and pilot data. Cooperation is exemplified in a list of aspects and related to levels of the driving task. With the concept ‘Conduct-by-Wire', cooperation happens mainly on the guidance level, where the driver can delegate manoeuvres to the automation with a specialised manoeuvre interface. With H-Mode, a haptic-multimodal interaction with highly automated vehicles based on the H(orse)-Metaphor, cooperation is mainly done on guidance and control with a haptically active interface. Cooperativeness should be a key aspect for future human–automation systems. Especially for highly automated vehicles, cooperative guidance and control is a research direction with already promising concepts and prototypes that should be further explored. The application of the presented approach is every human–machine system that moves and includes high levels of assistance/automation.

Abstract

Practitioner Summary: The aim of this article is to sketch a general ergonomic framework of cooperative guidance and control. After a general description, the framework is illustrated through descriptions of two examples for which prototype embodiments have been developed and preliminary evaluations conducted. Major findings of pilot studies show good system performance and acceptance.

Keywords::

• ergonomics
• assistance
• automation
• shared control
• cooperative guidance and control
• human–machine integration

Acknowledgements

The research on H-Mode and CbW was funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft DFG. The concept of H-Mode was initially developed at NASA Langley Research Center, while the lead author held a National Research Council Research Associateship Award. Some of the simulator experiments described here were performed in the dynamic driving simulator of DLR-ITS Braunschweig, while the lead author was leading a research group on system ergonomics and design for highly automated vehicles. Many thanks to Eugen Altendorf, Marcel Baltzer, Daniel Damböck, Benjamin Franz, Sebastian Geyer, Stefan Griesche, Stephan Hakuli, Matthias Heesen, Michaela Kauer, Johann Kelsch, Martin Kienle, Christian Löper, Sonja Meier, Michael Schreiber, Mohsen Sefati and Anne Williams, for their invaluable support in the prototype development, evaluations and preparation of this publication. Many thanks also to the anonymous reviewers, whose suggestions were extremely valuable.