Mode Awareness and Automated Driving—What Is It and How Can It Be Measured?

Abstract

In SAE (Society of Automotive Engineers) Level 2, the driver has to monitor the traffic situation and system performance at all times, whereas the system assumes responsibility within a certain operational design domain in SAE Level 3. The different responsibility allocation in these automation modes requires the driver to always be aware of the currently active system and its limits to ensure a safe drive. For that reason, current research focuses on identifying factors that might promote mode awareness. There is, however, no gold standard for measuring mode awareness and different approaches are used to assess this highly complex construct. This circumstance complicates the comparability and validity of study results. We thus propose a measurement method that combines the knowledge and the behavior pillar of mode awareness. The latter is represented by the relational attention ratio in manual, Level 2 and Level 3 driving as well as the controllability of a system limit in Level 2. The knowledge aspect of mode awareness is operationalized by a questionnaire on the mental model for the automation systems after an initial instruction as well as an extensive enquiry following the driving sequence. Further assessments of system trust, engagement in non-driving related tasks and subjective mode awareness are proposed.

Multimodal interface and reliability displays: Effect on attention, mode awareness, and trust in partially automated vehicles

“…Therefore, the goal (1) aims to provide information that enables the identification of modes of driving automation system, and the goal (4) avoids the occurrence of errors related to the identification of the status of the driving automation system. Mode awareness, defined here as awareness of the current mode of driving automation system and the knowledge encompassing the existing modes (Kurpiers et al, 2020), allows to describe the identification of modes and the likely occurrence of automation surprises. An accurate mode awareness implies that modes have been identified and, therefore, automation surprises are not expected to occur.…”

“…Mode awareness is founded on two dimensions, namely, knowledge about automation's functioning and awareness at a specific moment of the state of driving automation systems (Kurpiers et al, 2020). Experience with the driving automation system (i.e., the time spent using the system) plays a major role in correctly understanding the role one has to play in the interaction (Solís-Marcos et al, 2018).…”

On-Road Assessment of Driver Mode Awareness of Assisted and Automated Driving

“…Mode confusion can in turn lead to mode errors, which is when a human user acts erroneously by behaving in a way that is appropriate in one mode of automation when the system is actually in another (Sarter & Woods, 1995). Mode awareness can be subdivided into two principal parts: 1) declarative knowledge about what mode is currently active and the autonomous system's abilities and 2) resultant behavior that is compliant with the currently active mode (Kurpiers, Biebl, Mejia Hernandez, & Raisch, 2020).…”

Editorial for Special Issue: Test and Evaluation Methods for Human-Machine Interfaces of Automated Vehicles

“…The third paper "Mode Awareness and Automated Driving-What Is It and How Can It Be Measured?" by Kurpiers, Biebl, Mejia Hernandez and Raisch [15] introduces a measurement method to assess mode awareness when using automated vehicles. The background of this study is the different responsibility allocation in different automation modes that requires the driver to always be aware of the currently active system and its limits to ensure a safe drive.…”