Ford is working to help understand human reactions to self driving and helping with hurricane victims. To hide a driver, the driver wears a suit that looks like a car seat. Ford also has financial incentives and donations for hurricane survivors.
Seat Suit Suited for Testing
Ford Motor Company partnered with Virginia Tech Transportation Institute, to conduct a user experience study to test out a method for communicating a vehicle’s intent by soliciting real-world reactions to a self-driving car on public roads.The team considered using displayed text, but that would require people all understand the same language. The use of symbols was rejected because symbols historically have low recognition among consumers.
In the end, the researchers decided lighting signals are the most effective means for creating a visual communications protocol for self-driving vehicles. As light signals for turning and braking indication are already standardized and widely understood, they determined the use of lighting signals is best to communicate whether the vehicle is in autonomous drive mode, beginning to yield, or about to accelerate from a stop.
So Ford outfitted a Transit Connect van with a light bar placed on the windshield. To simulate a fully self-driving experience without using an actual autonomous vehicle, the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute team developed a way to conceal the driver with a “seat suit.”
The suit creates the illusion of a fully autonomous vehicle, which is necessary to test and evaluate real-world encounters and behaviors. The researchers then went to work experimenting with three light signals to test the communication of the vehicle’s intent:
Yield: Two white lights that move side to side, indicating vehicle is about to yield to a full stop
Active autonomous driving mode: Solid white light to indicate vehicle is driving autonomously
Start to go: Rapidly blinking white light to indicate vehicle is beginning to accelerate from a stop
The simulated autonomous Transit Connect was driven on public roads in northern Virginia – home to a density of traffic and pedestrians – throughout August, with researchers capturing video and logs of pedestrian reactions. More than 150 hours of data over approximately 1,800 miles of driving was collected in an urban environment, including encounters with pedestrians, bicyclists and other drivers. External signals were activated more than 1,650 times at various locations around Arlington, Va., including at intersections, parking lots, garages, airport roadways, and various other locations.
Numerous high-definition cameras mounted in the study vehicle provided a 360-degree view of surrounding areas and captured the behavior of other road users. This data will be valuable to understanding if other road users change their behaviors in response to self-driving vehicles and the signals they employ.
“This work is of value not only to vehicle users and manufacturers, but also to anyone who walks, rides or drives alongside autonomous vehicles in the future,” said Andy Schaudt, project director, Center for Automated Vehicle Systems, Virginia Tech Transportation Institute. “We are proud to support Ford in developing this important research.”
So Ford outfitted a Transit Connect van with a light bar placed on the windshield. To simulate a fully self-driving experience without using an actual autonomous vehicle, the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute team developed a way to conceal the driver with a “seat suit.”
The suit creates the illusion of a fully autonomous vehicle, which is necessary to test and evaluate real-world encounters and behaviors. The researchers then went to work experimenting with three light signals to test the communication of the vehicle’s intent:
Yield: Two white lights that move side to side, indicating vehicle is about to yield to a full stop
Active autonomous driving mode: Solid white light to indicate vehicle is driving autonomously
Start to go: Rapidly blinking white light to indicate vehicle is beginning to accelerate from a stop
The simulated autonomous Transit Connect was driven on public roads in northern Virginia – home to a density of traffic and pedestrians – throughout August, with researchers capturing video and logs of pedestrian reactions. More than 150 hours of data over approximately 1,800 miles of driving was collected in an urban environment, including encounters with pedestrians, bicyclists and other drivers. External signals were activated more than 1,650 times at various locations around Arlington, Va., including at intersections, parking lots, garages, airport roadways, and various other locations.
Hurricane Relief Efforts from Ford
Ford has launched multiple initiatives to assist in hurricane relief efforts:
- Ford Motor Company Fund will match employee and dealer contributions to the American Red Cross up to $150,000 to aid Hurricane Irma disaster relief efforts, raising potential assistance from Ford to $300,000
- A special customer-assistance bundle, “Florida Is Family,” will go toward helping customers whose vehicles were lost or damaged to meet their immediate vehicle needs. The bundle, in effect now through Oct. 2 for purchases financed through Ford Credit or Lincoln Automotive Financial Services and completed before Oct. 31, includes:
- The same no-haggle, below-invoice price Ford Motor Company employees and their families receive
- No payments until next year
- Low Ford Credit APR or lease rates.
- Existing Ford Credit and Lincoln Automotive Financial Services customers affected by Irma can apply to have their payments deferred for up to two months by visiting FordCredit.com or LincolnAFS.com, calling 800.723.4016, or by going through the FordPass smartphone app
- First responders in hurricane-affected areas are eligible to receive a special $1,000 discount (in addition to all available incentives) toward purchase of any Ford or Lincoln vehicle; see www.FordSalutesThoseWhoServe.com for more