Design of Anthropomorphic Interfaces for Autonomous Vehicle-Pedestrian Interaction

dc.contributor.advisorSharlin, Ehud
dc.contributor.authorWei, Wei
dc.contributor.committeememberChen, Zhangxing
dc.contributor.committeememberSharlin, Ehud
dc.contributor.committeememberOehlberg, Lora
dc.contributor.committeememberSomanath, Sowmya
dc.date2023-02
dc.date.accessioned2023-01-27T17:00:05Z
dc.date.available2023-01-27T17:00:05Z
dc.date.issued2023-01
dc.description.abstractAutonomous Vehicle (AV) technology promises to revolutionize human life. The promise of AVs includes reduced highway congestion, more efficient energy usage, and cheaper goods and services. However, without careful design, removing human drivers from vehicles will eliminate the natural communication channels which enable pedestrians to navigate safely. This thesis aims to design, present, and study anthropomorphic interfaces for autonomous vehicles, with the objective of enabling AVs to communicate with pedestrians through non-verbal cues. Non-verbal human communication is vital in human relationships. People use non-verbal communication when speech is impractical, such as when interacting with vehicles. When looking into ways in which AVs can use non-verbal communication to interact with pedestrians, we were inspired by the prospect of using anthropomorphic interfaces. This concept is well explored in Human-Robot Interaction (HRI) but has not been investigated in the context of AVs. For this thesis, we explored the design of anthropomorphic interfaces for autonomous vehicles. First, we proposed three types of anthropomorphic interfaces for AVs: facial expressions, hand gestures, and humanoid torsos. We developed a design space for each category using sketches and a low-fi prototype. Then, to research the benefits and limitations of anthropomorphic AVs, we implemented our AV interfaces in a Virtual Reality (VR) environment and developed two testbeds to evaluate their feasibility and scalability. Finally, we conducted two studies using the two testbeds. We investigated the study results using immersive analytics alongside traditional methods and revealed that anthropomorphic AVs could be helpful in AV-pedestrian interaction when designed by specific guidelines. Since we studied anthropomorphic AVs in VR, we were interested in the possibilities of analyzing the data of our study in an immersive environment. We designed a VR prototype specifically to analyze the data collected from the anthropomorphic AV study. The prototype provided basic immersive analytics features for the AV study data. We conducted an expert session with two domain experts to evaluate our immersive analytics prototype. The study contributed insights into the opportunities and challenges of utilizing immersive analytics to analyze AV studies.en_US
dc.identifier.citationWei, W. (2023). Design of anthropomorphic interfaces for Autonomous Vehicle-pedestrian interaction (Master's thesis, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada). Retrieved from https://prism.ucalgary.ca.en_US
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/1880/115776
dc.identifier.urihttps://dx.doi.org/10.11575/PRISM/40689
dc.language.isoengen_US
dc.publisher.facultyScienceen_US
dc.publisher.institutionUniversity of Calgaryen
dc.relation.hasparthttp://hdl.handle.net/1880/115704
dc.relation.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/1880/115704
dc.rightsUniversity of Calgary graduate students retain copyright ownership and moral rights for their thesis. You may use this material in any way that is permitted by the Copyright Act or through licensing that has been assigned to the document. For uses that are not allowable under copyright legislation or licensing, you are required to seek permission.en_US
dc.subjectAnthropomorphismen_US
dc.subjectAV-pedestrian Interactionen_US
dc.subjectImmersive Analyticsen_US
dc.subjectVRen_US
dc.subject.classificationInformation Scienceen_US
dc.subject.classificationComputer Scienceen_US
dc.titleDesign of Anthropomorphic Interfaces for Autonomous Vehicle-Pedestrian Interactionen_US
dc.typemaster thesisen_US
thesis.degree.disciplineComputer Scienceen_US
thesis.degree.grantorUniversity of Calgaryen_US
thesis.degree.nameMaster of Science (MSc)en_US
ucalgary.item.requestcopytrueen_US
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