An Eye on the Automation: User-Centered Development of a Human-Machine Interface for the Remote Assistance of Highly Automated Vehicles (SAE 4)

Automated driving is a disruptive technology related to a plethora of safety-related, economical, and ecological improvements. However, even cutting-edge driving automation technology at SAE Level 4 is not capable of coping with all scenarios that can possibly occur in naturalistic road traffic. A remote operator may be a viable approach to observe highly automated vehicles (HAVs) from a control center and assist the automation whenever its capabilities are exceeded. Moreover, legal requirements in Germany dictate a “Technical Supervisor” be monitoring automated driving operations. For the safe, effective, and efficient interaction between remote operator and vehicle automation it is therefore vital to design a human-machine interface (HMI) by centrally involving its future users and focusing on the scenarios that will likely occur in Level 4 automated driving. By pursuing a user- and context-centered approach, an HMI for the Remote Assistance of HAVs has been generated. The HMI has been evaluated by experts and prototypically implemented as a workplace for the Remote Assistant, is currently under usability evaluation in a user study and will be refined in future iterations. After presenting this process, a roadmap to further investigate teleoperation from a Human Factors perspective will be proposed