Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
5.2. Copiloting and human-machine cooperation: context and stakes for the
automobile
With the massive development of embedded information systems and recent
progress in terms of automation of driving, the whole activity of the human driver is
radically changing. Under the combined effect of these two technological
revolutions, it is now a matter of extricating a general framework for human-
machine cooperation in automobiles, in view of designing the vehicle of the future.
This approach is necessary for improving security, acceptability and the user
friendliness of driving assistance. On the one hand, the diversity technology on
offer
and the multitude of aid systems that are already available means that their
integration within more complex devices needs to be considered in order to be able
to guarantee a good interaction with the human driver. This is necessary, as much to
avoid certain problematic effects (negative interference with the activity of the
driver, for example, or a distraction with regards to the road), as to improve the
legibility of aids (harmonization of the aid, whatever the device in charge of
providing it at time
t
). It equally involves trying to get a greater benefit from
existing technology on offer (for example, by the mutualization of certain technical
components between different assistance devices).
On the other hand, drivers do not all necessarily need to be assisted in the same
way or in the same situations. When the driver is perfectly in control of the
situation, he does not care about assistance. However, sometimes he can have real
difficulties or is unaware of a potential danger, which fully justifies the intervention
of a driving aid. It is therefore advisable for technology to be able to appreciate the
difficulties that the human is facing
at that moment,
in order to provide assistance
that is adapted in its nature and form, to the actions of the driver at the time and to
the driving conditions at that moment. All these evolutions are heading towards
integrated “intelligent copiloting” devices that are able to harmoniously cooperate
with the driver and likely to adjust their assistance according to the context of use.
Though this approach is necessary and has been the subject of research in the
context of embedded information systems (for example, the European projects
CEMVOCAS
1
and AIDE
2
), it nonetheless becomes much more acute as soon as the
assistance devices are able to directly intervene in the commands.
Indeed, just like the technological revolution that radically changed aeronautics
at the end of the 1970s [BIL 91], [BOY 03], [STA 92], automation is now appearing
in the automobile sector, with the automaton able to take control of the vehicle
1 CEMVocAS (European project 1997-2001)
CEntralised Management of Vocal interfaces
aiming at a better Automotive Safety
[BEL 02, BEL 03].
2 AIDE (European project 2004-2008):
Adaptive Integrated Driver-vehicle interfacE
[TAT 05, BEL 07b].
