Designing an Automated Vehicle: Strategies for Handling Tasks of a Previously Required Accompanying Person

TL;DR

This paper presents four strategies for automating tasks traditionally performed by accompanying persons in autonomous vehicles, aiming to improve accessibility and support for users in need of assistance.

Contribution

It introduces a structured top-down approach for developers to identify, structure, and address unresolved problems related to user assistance in driverless vehicle design.

Findings

Four strategies effectively address tasks of accompanying persons

Application of strategies improves vehicle support for users needing assistance

Early problem detection enhances autonomous vehicle development

Abstract

When using a conventional passenger car, several groups of people are reliant on the assistance of an accompanying person, for example when getting in and out of the car. For the independent use of an automatically driving vehicle by those groups, the absence of a previously required accompanying person needs to be compensated. During the design process of an autonomous family vehicle, we found that a low-barrier vehicle design can only partly contribute to the compensation for the absence of a required human companion. In this paper, we present four strategies we identified for handling the tasks of a previously required accompanying individual. The presented top-down approach supports developers in identifying unresolved problems, in finding, structuring, and selecting solutions as well as in uncovering upcoming problems at an early stage in the development of novel concepts for driverless vehicles. As an example, we consider the hypothetical exit of persons in need of assistance. The application of the four strategies in this example demonstrates the far-reaching impact of consistently considering users in need of support in the development of automated vehicles.