Reliable occupant protection technologies and HMI solutions to ensure the safety of highly automated vehicles (CCAM Partnership)

Topic description

ExpectedOutcome:

Project results are expected to contribute to all of the following expected outcomes:

• Protection systems in Connected and Automated Vehicles (CAVs) designed for a greater variation of unconventional seating positions and body postures, including sex, age and ability differences, to be sufficiently inclusive to encompass the diversity of the occupant population, considering all situations and conditions for the application of such systems and taking into account different accident configurations with a higher market penetration of CAVs.
• New, advanced Human-Machine-Interface (HMI) solutions as enablers for the safe and efficient co-existence and interaction of CAVs with other road users (including Vulnerable Road Users and non-automated vehicles). Interfaces should be reliable and seamless, based on comprehensive knowledge and models of individual human behaviour and capabilities.
• Advanced driver/passenger condition monitoring and improved HMI functionalities to prepare the driver to take control as may be necessary when the vehicle reaches the limits of its Operational Design Domains (ODD).
• Consistent design methodologies and tools for performance assessment of the new protection systems.
• Delivering evidence-based support to the regulatory bodies for the potential adaptation of traffic rules.

In order to ensure the safety of highly automated vehicles, on-board systems need to anticipate risks reliably, prevent crashes and minimise the consequence of unavoidable collisions while enhancing user acceptance, and generating trust and reliance on automated systems through well-designed, informative Human-Machine-Interfaces.

The proposed actions should address all the following aspects:

• Development of vehicle crashworthiness and advanced safety solutions in order to protect passengers and mitigate injury risk in unavoidable collisions also with new, unconventional seating positions and body postures, considering new protection principles and taking into account all situations and conditions for the application of such systems (for example in shared automated road vehicles). This also includes the identification of new accident configurations and adaptations to the structural layout of vehicles.
• Development of empathic HMI solutions, which includes a framework for modelling human emotions, in order to enable natural and intuitive interaction of CAVs with the driver, passengers and with other road users (including unprotected ones) also in mixed traffic situations.
• Monitoring approaches and simulation models to detect and assess occupant status (including health) and level and point of attention of the driver, enabling appropriate HMI, linked also to the new intelligent protection systems in order to fully leverage their potential in terms of adapting to different seating positions, body postures, occupant sizes etc., including gender, age, and ability differences.
• Improved solutions to address situations in which human drivers are expected to seamlessly resume control, for example when the limit of the ODD is approaching.
• Recommendations for user-centric HMI design guidelines and for an extension of the European Statement of Principles for human-machine interaction (ESoP)^[1] towards automated vehicles should be derived, taking into account also the interaction with unprotected road users and other non-automated, non-connected vehicles.
• Development of assessment tools for the developed protection technologies and advanced safety solutions in order to support the definition of safety requirements, standards (e.g. UNECE) and the analysis of potential needs for the adaptation of traffic rules.

This topic requires the effective contribution of SSH disciplines and the involvement of SSH experts, institutions, as well as the inclusion of relevant SSH expertise, in order to produce meaningful and significant effects enhancing the societal impact of the related research activities.

In order to achieve the expected outcomes, international cooperation is advised, in particular with projects or partners from the US, Japan, Canada, South Korea, Singapore, Australia.

This topic implements the co-programmed European Partnership on ‘Connected, Cooperative and Automated Mobility’ (CCAM).

Activities are expected to achieve TRL 5 by the end of the project – see General Annex B.

Co-programmed European Partnerships
Social sciences and humanities
International Cooperation
Artificial Intelligence
Digital Agenda

[1]European Commission Recommendation on safe and efficient in-vehicle information and communication systems: update of the European Statement of Principles on human-machine interface, 2008/653/EC