A Driver-Automation Shared Control for Forward Collision Avoidance While Automation Failure

Human-robot interaction is one of the most important topics to resolve critical safety problem for application of robotics technology. In this paper, we investigated a driver-automation shared control for forward collision avoidance while automation failure. To understand the influences of shared control on driver behaviors, a driving simulator experiment was conducted by cooperation with fifteen participants, under different levels of automation authority: manual driving, haptic guidance steering, human-in-the-loop and human-out-the-loop automated lane tracking. The reaction time and lane change trajectory to avoid a forward collision when facing a critical event were measured, and an after-effect of shared control on lane following performance was evaluated by analysis of time-to-lane crossing during manual driving after the critical event. Finally, a statistical analysis was processed to further indicate human-automation interaction tendencies under different levels of automation authority.