Assessing Situation Awareness while Driving with Automation

In a driving simulator study, different levels of situation awareness (SA) were created experimentally and the suitability of different methods for assessing SA and their relation to each other were investigated. N=41 participants experienced driving with an automated driving function (AD) in four conditions (SAE level 2 vs. two versions of SAE level 3 vs. SAE level 3 with black scenery during AD mode) which were expected to result in different levels of SA. Results from the post- drive questionnaire indicate that while being in AD mode, three levels of SA could be induced for aspects of SA perceived via visual perception of the road. For other aspects of SA and perception during takeover request, results show reduced variation of SA between conditions with only two levels remaining. These two levels are also in-line with reaction times in takeover situations. In summary, we could induce different levels of SA and the used post-drive questionnaire was suited to measure those differences.