Automation research on showcase at Science Museum Lates

Members of the Human Factors and Safety research group recently showcased our automation research as part of a Lates event linked to the special exhibition, ‘Driverless: who is in control?’, at the Science Museum in London. Science Museum Lates are adults-only, after-hours theme nights that take place in the museum on the last Wednesday of every month.

Professor Natasha Merat, Dr Tyron Louw, Dr Andrew Tomlinson, and Mr Jorge Garcia de Pedro, gave a demonstration of a pedestrian crossing experiment from the InterACT project. A Wireless Head Mounted Display was used to show members of the public what it would be like to interact with an automated vehicle in a virtual world (see video below). This setup is currently being used at Leeds to understand whether future automated vehicles need to incorporate new, externally presented, interfaces, to communicate their intent to other road users.

Using this demonstration, and additional videos, brochures, and banners, the researchers explained how we use our human-in-the-loop simulation suite (including UoLDS, TruckSIM, and HIKER), to investigate human factors-related issues around the use and acceptance of automated vehicles.

The special exhibition also includes a video (see below) about our research on transitions of control in automated driving and features Prof Merat and the University of Leeds Driving Simulator.