Increasing driver's situational awareness in semi-automated vehicles using a head-up display

By taking over parts of the driving task, automated vehicles are expected to contribute to increase of driving safety. Moreover, with the help of numerous sensors and advanced human-computer interaction designs, automated vehicles with higher levels of automation provide valuable information to increase driver’s situational awareness (knowing what is going on around you) to further assist with the driving task. However, although road safety is expected to increase with each higher level of automation, the available data suggests that human driving behaviour in conditionally automated vehicles may be a weak link in their contribution to road
safety. For example, despite the clear definition and instruction that the driver has to remain engaged in the task of driving (SAE level 2 of automation) or be ready to take over control of the vehicle at any time (SAE level 3 of automation), drivers of conditionally automated vehicles seem to get easily involved in performing secondary tasks, do not pay sufficient amount of attention to the environment and sometimes neglect (accidentally or intentionally) the primary task of driving. This paper presents the development process of a head-up display intended to help towards resolving this problem, and help the driver maintain, or regain, appropriate situational awareness when operating a conditionally automated vehicle.