SOAR TECHNOLOGY, LLC — Department of Transportation SBIR Phase II: 15.1-FH1

Description

With the introduction of Level 2 (L2) vehicle automation technologies, a core challenge facing drivers is to remain engaged in the driving task and aware of the vehicle environment despite not playing an immediate role in the low-level driving control loop. To overcome this challenge, SoarTech developed DAISY, an innovative vehicle sub-system that maintains internal and external situation awareness and is able to the alert the driver with information-rich alerts in order to maintain safe L2 and L3driving. In our phase II effort, we demonstrated that DAISY increased driver awareness of events occurring to the sides and rear of the vehicle even when the driver was otherwise distracted. The long-term vision for DAISY is to elevate the driver’s involvement to a high-level, supervisory control loop. The proposed effort takes a step in this direction by designing and simulating scenarios that include mixed initiative dialog that keeps the driver fully engaged in the driving process without requiring continuous control. The results of these simulations can be used to develop and produce an improved DAISY prototype with further value to L2 and L3 driving systems.