Probabilistic, Variable and Interaction-aware Situation Recognition

Future advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) as well as autonomous driving functions will extend their applicability to more complex highway scenarios and inner-city traffic. For these systems it is a prerequisite to know how an encountered traffic scene is most likely going to evolve. Situation recognition aims to predict the high level behavior patterns traffic participants pursue. Thus, it provides valuable information that helps to predict the next few seconds of a traffic scene. The extension of ADAS and autonomous driving functions to more complex scenarios poses a problem to state-of-the-art situation recognition systems due to the variability of the encountered scene layouts, the presence of multiple interacting traffic participants and the concomitant large number of possible situation classes. This thesis proposes and discusses approaches that tackle these challenges. A novel discriminative maneuver estimation framework provides the possibility to assess traffic scenes with varying layout. It is based on reusable, partial classifiers that are combined online using a technique called pairwise probability coupling. The real-world evaluations indicate that the assembled probabilistic maneuver estimation is able to provide superior classification results. A novel interaction-aware situation recognition framework constructs a probabilistic situation assessment over multiple traffic participants without relying on independence assumptions. It allows to assess each traffic participant individually by using maneuver estimation systems that determine complete conditional distributions. A real-world evaluation outlines its applicability and shows its benefits. The challenges associated with the increasing number of possible situation classes are addressed in two ways. Both frameworks allow to reuse classifiers in different contexts. This reduces the number of models required to cope with a large variety of traffic scenes. Moreover, a situation hypotheses selection scheme provides an efficient way for reducing the number of situation hypotheses. This lowers the computational demands and eases the load on subsequent systems

Joint University Program for Air Transportation Research, 1989-1990

Research conducted during the academic year 1989-90 under the NASA/FAA sponsored Joint University Program for Air Transportation research is discussed. Completed works, status reports and annotated bibliographies are presented for research topics, which include navigation, guidance and control theory and practice, aircraft performance, human factors, and expert systems concepts applied to airport operations. An overview of the year's activities for each university is also presented

Driver Behavior Analysis Based on Real On-Road Driving Data in the Design of Advanced Driving Assistance Systems

The number of vehicles on the roads increases every day. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), the overwhelming majority of serious crashes (over 94 percent) are caused by human error. The broad aim of this research is to develop a driver behavior model using real on-road data in the design of Advanced Driving Assistance Systems (ADASs). For several decades, these systems have been a focus of many researchers and vehicle manufacturers in order to increase vehicle and road safety and assist drivers in different driving situations. Some studies have concentrated on drivers as the main actor in most driving circumstances. The way a driver monitors the traffic environment partially indicates the level of driver awareness. As an objective, we carry out a quantitative and qualitative analysis of driver behavior to identify the relationship between a driver’s intention and his/her actions. The RoadLAB project developed an instrumented vehicle equipped with On-Board Diagnostic systems (OBD-II), a stereo imaging system, and a non-contact eye tracker system to record some synchronized driving data of the driver cephalo-ocular behavior, the vehicle itself, and traffic environment. We analyze several behavioral features of the drivers to realize the potential relevant relationship between driver behavior and the anticipation of the next driver maneuver as well as to reach a better understanding of driver behavior while in the act of driving. Moreover, we detect and classify road lanes in the urban and suburban areas as they provide contextual information. Our experimental results show that our proposed models reached the F1 score of 84% and the accuracy of 94% for driver maneuver prediction and lane type classification respectively

Human-Machine Cooperative Decision Making

Diese Dissertation beschäftigt sich mit der gemeinsamen Entscheidungsfindung in der Mensch-Maschine-Kooperation und liefert neue Erkenntnisse, welche von der theoretischen Modellierung bis zu experimentellen Untersuchungen reichen. Zunächst wird eine methodische Klassifikation bestehender Forschung zur Mensch-Maschine-Kooperation vorgenommen und der Forschungsfokus dieser Dissertation mithilfe eines vorgestellten Taxonomiemodells der Mensch-Maschine-Kooperation, dem Butterfly-Modell, abgegrenzt. Darauffolgend stellt die Dissertation zwei mathematische Verhaltensmodelle der gemeinsamen Entscheidungsfindung von Mensch und Maschine vor: das Adaptive Verhandlungsmodell und den n-stufigen War of Attrition. Beide modellieren den Einigungsprozess zweier emanzipierter Kooperationspartner und unterscheiden sich hinsichtlich ihrer Ursprünge, welche in der Verhandlungs- beziehungsweise Spieltheorie liegen. Zusätzlich wird eine Studie vorgestellt, die die Eignung der vorgeschlagenen mathematischen Modelle zur Beschreibung des menschlichen Nachgebeverhaltens in kooperativen Entscheidungsfindungs-Prozessen nachweist. Darauf aufbauend werden zwei modellbasierte Automationsdesigns bereitgestellt, welche die Entwicklung von Maschinen ermöglichen, die an einem Einigungsprozess mit einem Menschen teilnehmen können. Zuletzt werden zwei experimentelle Untersuchungen der vorgeschlagenen Automationsdesigns im Kontext von teleoperierten mobilen Robotern in Such- und Rettungsszenarien und anhand einer Anwendung in einem hochautomatisierten Fahrzeug präsentiert. Die experimentellen Ergebnisse liefern empirische Evidenz für die Überlegenheit der vorgestellten modellbasierten Automationsdesigns gegenüber den bisherigen Ansätzen in den Aspekten der objektiven kooperativen Performanz, des menschlichen Vertrauens in die Interaktion mit der Maschine und der Nutzerzufriedenheit. So zeigt diese Dissertation, dass Menschen eine emanzipierte Interaktion mit Bezug auf die Entscheidungsfindung bevorzugen, und leistet einen wertvollen Beitrag zur vollumfänglichen Betrachtung und Verwirklichung von Mensch-Maschine-Kooperationen