Driver Monitoring, Risk Perception and Automated Vehicles

The aim of this project is to use human psychophysiological measures such as eye and head tracking, seat and body position etc., to establish how vehicle automation affects participants' engagement in the driving task and to understand what drivers do when automation is engaged. As the automated systems advance in capability, there is less and less call for drivers to be involved in the driving task. However, should the system reach its limitations or the vehicle come to the end of a road where automation is no longer possible, the vehicle needs to ensure that the driver is in a safe and ready state to resume control from the vehicle and re-engage in manual driving. This transition of control back to the driver must be supported by a driver monitoring system which establishes whether the driver is alert and capable of resuming control. The proposed research programme will therefore establish what type of monitoring is successful in providing this information and also investigate methods for ensuring the driver is not able to completely disengage from control of the vehicle. Understanding how to keep the driver vigilant, yet not bored of monitoring automation, is also an important consideration of this project.