Le véhicule autonome : se désengager et se réengager dans la conduite

Abstract

With future autonomous vehicles, drivers will have to regularly take over the control of a vehicle moving in traffic. This will mean not only taking over the driving but also reconstructing a suitable awareness of the situation (Situation Awareness - SA) that enables him/her to anticipate traffic evolution.Out of 15 participants in a study on the time needed to take over control, two were selected for an autoconfrontation interview. A detailed qualitative analysis of the driver’s take over process was carried out, after they had been deeply engaged in a life-on-board task. The notion of engagement, from the Course of Action theory, shows how reengagement in driving is dynamically built. The case studies suggest that with time pressure, a novice driver is likely to be first oriented towards the immediacy of the environment, leading him to focus on the trajectory of the vehicle. Construction of situation awareness (SA) only takes place afterwards.This short instant of radical change in activity offers an ideal opportunity to observe this dynamic aspect of engagement. The articulation of Situated Cognition notions draws a picture of the reengagement process. The resulting typology of reengagement processes offers design principles.

Keywords

• autonomous driving
• engagement
• course of action
• situated cognition