Two large, moving eyes at the front of a self-driving car make the vehicle safer for pedestrians. This is apparent from a Japanese study in which subjects had to decide when it was safe to cross the road.
With its large, red eyes, the cart from the Japanese experiment is reminiscent of a character from the Pixar film cars. But this cartoonish cart is not for entertainment: the eyes have a serious function. They help pedestrians to estimate when they can safely cross the road.
Developments in the field of self-driving cars are moving fast. It is not inconceivable that in a few years’ time autonomous cars will be driving through the city, delivering parcels or cleaning the streets, for example. And maybe in the future, self-driving cars will drive us to work, while we can read the latest New Scientist on the go.
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Safety
To make this futuristic scenario a reality, researchers worldwide are working on technologies that allow vehicles to navigate the world independently and safely. An underexposed aspect of this is the interaction between self-driving cars and the people around them, such as pedestrians, write the Japanese researchers.
When you want to cross a street as a pedestrian while a car is approaching, you usually look at the driver. When the car slows down and the driver looks your way, you know he or she has seen you. If the driver’s attention is clearly elsewhere, you know that it is safer to wait a little longer before crossing the road.
This scenario is not possible with a self-driving car. If there is already a person in it, chances are they are not paying attention to the road. This makes it difficult for a pedestrian to estimate whether the vehicle’s sensors have detected him.
attentive eyes
What if, Japanese researchers thought, you could make eye contact with a self-driving car? The eyes of the car then turn in the direction of the pedestrian or other road user who registers them. This makes it clear that the vehicle has seen them, and that they can cross safely.
To test this idea, the researchers developed four golf cart scenarios: one had two round robotic eyes, the other did not. In one case, the cart had noticed the pedestrian and was about to stop. Otherwise, the cart would not have seen the pedestrian and would move on. The cart with the eyes showed this to the pedestrian by looking when it was going to stop, and by looking away when it wouldn’t.
Dangerous Choices
It is a bit risky to ask volunteer test subjects whether or not to cross the road for a self-driving cart. That is why the researchers investigated the effect safely indoors, with 18 subjects wearing VR glasses. The subjects, who were not aware that they were looking at self-driving cars, saw the scenarios through the VR glasses. They were given three seconds each to decide whether to cross.
First of all, the results showed a clear difference in the crossing behavior of men and women. ‘That was unexpected and surprising’, email researcher Chia-Ming Changfrom the University of Tokyo.
Men were much more likely to make the dangerous decision to cross the road when the cart wouldn’t stop. Women, on the other hand, more often chose to wait, even if the cart would stop. The eyes ensured that all test subjects better estimate the behavior of the carts, so that they crossed the road more quickly and safely.
Chang believes that future self-driving cars should all have a pair of these eyes, or some other way of communicating with pedestrians. ‘There is now a communication gap between self-driving cars and pedestrians,’ he says.