A motivational driver model for the design of a rear-end crash avoidance system

Abstract

A motivational driver model is developed to design a rear-end crash avoidance system. Current driver assistance systems use engineering methods without considering psychological human aspects, which leads to false activation of assistance systems and complicated control algorithms. The presented driver model estimates driver’s psychological motivations using the combined longitudinal and lateral time to collision, the vehicle kinematics, and the vehicle dynamics. These motivations simplify both autonomous driving algorithms and human-machine interactions. The optimal point of a motivational multi-objective cost function defines the decision for the autonomous driving. Moreover, the motivations are used as risk assessment factors for driver–machine interaction in dangerous situations. The system is evaluated on 10 human subjects in a driving simulator. The assistance system had no false activation during the tests. It avoided collisions in all the rear-end crash avoidance scenarios, while 90% of human subjects did not.