What is it about?
As cars become more automated, the driver's job changes from being in control of the car to supervising the automated system. This study looks at how supervising a semi-automated car affects the driver's mental workload and sleepiness compared to driving the car manually. The researchers tested an automated car prototype on a test track with 23 adult participants. They measured the participants' brain activity during manual driving and supervising the car in two different levels of automation. The results showed that supervising the car in the more advanced level of automation led to less mental workload but more sleepiness compared to manual driving and the less advanced level of automation. This means that when using more advanced automated systems, drivers may become too relaxed and tired, which can be dangerous. The researchers recommend that future automated car designs take into account the potential for fatigue and mental underload in drivers supervising the automated system.
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Why is it important?
To our best knowledge, this is the first attempt to evaluate both objective and subjective indicators of mental workload and fatigue in drivers operating a vehicle manually and in SAE L2 and SAE L3 automation modes which used a real vehicle, not a driving simulator. Our results suggest that drivers experience high fatigue and mental underload when supervising L3 vehicles. This is crucial for the design of future user interfaces and interaction strategies for highly automated vehicles.
Perspectives
This publication points out an essential aspect of automated driving and stresses the need for intelligent user interfaces that adapt to current environmental factors and the driver's immediate state.
Nikol Figalová
Universitat Ulm
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Fatigue and mental underload further pronounced in L3 conditionally automated driving: Results from an EEG experiment on a test track, March 2023, ACM (Association for Computing Machinery),
DOI: 10.1145/3581754.3584133.
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