Confidence Horizon for a Dynamic Balance between Drivers and Vehicle Automation: First Sketch and Application

Abstract

Advances in operator state monitoring and enhanced capabilities of automated vehicle systems will enable conditionally and highly automated vehicle systems (SAE level 3 and 4) in the near future. Possible transitions of control between driver and automation including handovers of the dynamic driving task to the driver will pose particular challenges. Several recent accidents show that understanding, exploring, designing, and testing these complex socio-technical systems not only in normal conditions, but especially at system limits and system failures is not only of scientific interest, but a matter of life and death. In the Confidence Horizon concept, the capabilities of the driver are continuously compared with those of the automated subsystem, resulting in two horizons: First, the technical subsystem's confidence in its own ability to safely control the vehicle, and second, the technical subsystem's confidence in the driver's ability to take over control. This allows to quickly identify whether transitions between different levels of automation are safe, whether a balanced control distribution is given, or whether, when and how a minimum risk maneuver may be necessary. The concept can thus serve as a first approach to describe, visualize and implement possible cooperation between users and automated vehicles. In this way, future highly and cooperatively automated vehicles could be improved by revealing safety-critical transitions between driver and vehicle at an early stage. This paper first describes the confidence horizon concept and then presents a first implementation.

Keywords: Automated Driving, Human Systems Integration, Cooperative Systems Interaction, Cooperative Automation, Highly Automated Systems

DOI: 10.54941/ahfe1002431