How different self-driving car companies are helping their machines com... https://mashable.

com/article/auotnomous-vehicles-talking-to-pedestrians

Tranportation elf-Driving Car

How elf-driving car will 'talk' to pedetrian

When there’ no driver ou have to get creative with light, ound, and viual.

 aha Lekach on Decemer 9, 2021

If there' no one driving a car how do ou communicate? Credit: Cruie

> Tech > Tranportation

It's hard to communicate with a gesture or nod at a passing car when there's no one at the wheel.

When it comes to driverless cars, this is a bigger, and potentially more life-threatening, issue than it
may seem. Road safety relies on all types of communication between people and vehicles, and most
importantly on a psychologist-coined term, "communicating intent."

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As pedestrians and fellow drivers we're constantly indicating what we're about to do, whether that's
with our words, body positions, or hand gestures. Studies have shown that up to 84 percent of
pedestrians attempt to make eye contact with drivers before crossing in front of them. So now robo-
cars need to be programmed to show what they're planning to do — and pedestrians will need
alternatives to smiles, glances, and frantic hand waves.

Self-driving cars also need to be able to communicate with paying customers, otherwise it'll be a
slow and messy process just matching passengers with a ride.

Amazon-owned Zoox is well aware of these driverless limitations as it builds a robo-taxi that will
never have a human driver in the front seat. �ere isn’t even a steering wheel. Instead of retraining
the car to function without a driver, Zoox is creating a new driving system from the ground up.

�e truly driverless vehicle allows Zoox’s lead product experience manager Riccardo Giraldi to
explore how future users and outside pedestrians, cyclists, and other (human) drivers will
communicate with each other.

“We’re making sure we make an experience that is mindful of everybody,” Giraldi said about the
development process.

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Putting Zoox to the Test: Autonomous Track Testing

With today’s human-driven vehicles, we use light, sound (think of all the honking on the road), hand
and head gestures, eye contact, and every road rager’s favorite tool, voice, to communicate while in a
car. Giraldi wants to build “something better than what we are used to today,” but isn’t completely
unfamiliar.

He's experimenting with sound and light cues to notify those around the vehicle what the Zoox
vehicle is planning to do. He said the Zoox car is a new entity on the road — it's not a person, bicycle,
or the usual car or even the usual self-driving car with a safety driver up front — so it will need to
gain everyone's trust. �at starts with interacting and communicating without forcing everyone to
learn a new language just to cross the street.

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Via Giphy

He talked about creating a "natural interaction" that's intuitive, "so you don’t have to learn how to
interact with it." So instead of learning a new color-coded light system or �guring out where to even
look on the car, Zoox wants to subtly convey information through the blinkers or with a simple
sound. �e colored lights on a Zoox car are similar to turn signals and brake lights, but can produce a
diverse range of pulses and color combinations that, in theory, could communicate all sorts of
things.

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Other self-driving car companies are thinking more about the interactions between robot cars and
their potential customers. Waymo already has fully driverless rides available in the Phoenix metro
area. Earlier this year it started using "Car ID" to give people a way to quickly spot the self-driving
taxi. Now a digital dash displays whatever the user has programmed to light up.

I could type in my initials in the app and then that'd be displayed on the car – or I could honk the
vehicle's horn remotely through the app.

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A different wa to find our taxi. Credit: Wamo

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When it comes to interactions with passing pedestrians, a Waymo spokesperson said safety and
courtesy are being programmed into the Waymo driving platform in the form of "subtle cues" rather
than explicit communication. For example, Waymo cars try to give cyclists a wider berth when
passing, or pedestrians more time and space at the crosswalk.

�e makers of Cruise's self-driving Chevy Bolt EVs and future fully driverless autonomous shuttle,
the Origin, are also concerned about interactions with pedestrians.

Brandon Basso, senior director of motion planning and control on Cruise's robotics team, said in a
recent phone call that Cruise’s focus is on that same psychological term "communicating intent." He
said, "�e primary way we signal to other road users is our actions."

So a Cruise Bolt might do something like moving over to give room to a bicycle coming from behind.
�at doesn't require any extra signaling, sound, or visual cues.

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Sharing the Road: How Cruise Cyclists Make Self-Driving Safer

Cruise last month started testing fully driverless rides in San Francisco with employees as the �rst
riders (although not without some controversy among local o�cials). As seen in some of the initial
videos from the rides, an interaction within the mobile phone app is Cruise’s solution to the problem
of robot-drivers not being able to spot their fares and let them know they’ve arrived.

Tweet may have been deleted

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But for passers-by, Basso recommends treating self-driving taxis as cautiously and warily as any
other car on the road, especially since Cruise studies real-life interactions between pedestrians,
cyclists, and other drivers to determine how it programs its cars to behave. �ere's no need to act
weird and hesitant around a self-driving car.

For other motorists, "bear in mind the Cruise vehicle is designed to comply with the way in which
the roadway is set up." �at's Basso's way of defending what human drivers might perceive as overly
cautious and slow driving.

It's also why Cruise has "self-driver in training” bumper stickers on all its cars. �e short phrase is the
clearest way to communicate what it's like to be around a driverless robo-taxi.

More in Self-Driving Cars

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