An HRI Framework for Designing AV-Pedestrian Interaction

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With the emergence of autonomous vehicles (AVs), we will all encounter AV-pedestrian interaction daily, when crossing streets, using crosswalks, or walking through parking lots. By viewing AVs as robots, AV-pedestrian interaction emerges as a massive-scale case study of human-robot interaction (HRI) theory and practice, where people will interact with robots everyday as they use their city roads, with possibly serious and critical consequences. This program focuses on the challenges and opportunities of interaction between AVs and pedestrians, building on our group's extensive HRI experience. Drivers interact with pedestrians using an elaborate set of cues reflecting their intentions and awareness. With AVs, and the absence of drivers, these cues will have to be replaced, or improved, by technology. Our program addresses this challenge by examining the design space of interaction between AVs and pedestrians. We consider AV-pedestrian interaction as an instance of social interaction between people and robots, and plan to benefit from the body of knowledge existing in computational HRI and the domain's practice and insight on social interaction, non-verbal behavior, safety, and acceptance of robotic interfaces. Our program's methodology is founded on the design of interfaces allowing AVs to communicate awareness and intent to pedestrians, following three themes: (1) Prototyping AV-Pedestrian Interfaces and Interaction Techniques. We will prototype, design and implement a set of interfaces and interaction techniques between AVs and pedestrians. The interfaces will communicate AV's awareness and intent to pedestrians, and will be installed on-board AVs, carried by pedestrians, embedded within roads infrastructure, or a mixture of these implementations. (2) Developing Immersive AV-Pedestrian Testbeds. Studying AV-pedestrian interaction is difficult due to safety concerns and AVs unavailability. To address this we will develop virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) immersive AV-pedestrian simulators, and will examine pedestrian' interaction with AVs in various settings. (3) AV Interfaces Evaluation and Framework. We will integrate and evaluate our AV-pedestrian interfaces and interaction techniques in mock and actual AV setups, developing demonstration application systems, toolkits, and theoretical frameworks for interaction between AVs and pedestrians.  The program's three sub-projects will provide novel interface prototypes, interaction techniques, test-beds, studies, and findings. We will use these in conjunction with computational HRI theories to form new toolkits, models and frameworks for understanding interaction between AVs and pedestrians. The tools, prototypes and theories developed will help researchers, industry, and policymakers with practical technologies supporting interaction between AVs and pedestrians. Long term impact will be safe and effective AV-pedestrian interaction, and improved acceptance of AVs in our society.