Description

Too many traffic accidents involve pedestrians, and too often with fatal consequences (e.g. 20 % of the fatalities in the European Union in 2021 concerned pedestrians [1]. One possibility to reduce accidents with pedestrians is the use of assistive technologies based on Vehicle-to-Pedestrian (V2P) communications technology, a particular use case of Vehicle-to-Everything (V2X) communications technology. For example, Rahimian et al. used text messages to mobile phones to alert [2] or warn [3] pedestrians when (not) to cross. A downside of V2P technology is that pedestrians need to carry a V2P device. While the smartphones can be used for this purpose, the usage of smartphones can be distracting. We propose the use of a robot to receive V2P messages and communicate them towards pedestrians. However, real life traffic experiments don’t come without additional risks for the participants. Thus, here we will start with experiments in simulation (either virtual reality (VR) or mixed reality (MR), to evaluate a robot’s influence on pedestrians’ behavior.

In this project, you will contribute to tackling this challenge. Concretely, you will:

1. develop a setup in VR or MR that can be used to conduct experiments
2. design an experiment involving  human participants to evaluate the influence of the robot;
3. collect and analyse the  outcomes of the experiment.

Pre-requisits: Proficiency in Python/C# programming. Experience with ROS, virtual/mixed reality and robot programming is advantageous, but not necessary.

The project will give you the opportunity to:

1. learn about V2P communications  technologiey
2. gain first-hand experience in virtual or mixed reality
3. get experience in robot programming
4. learn how to design user studies
5. discover a fundamental factor of Human-Robot Interaction (HRI)

References:

1. European Road Safety Observatory. 2023. Annual statistical report on road safety in the EU, 2022. European Commission, Directorate General for Transport, Brussels.
2. P. Rahimian et al., “Using a virtual environment to study the impact of sending traffic alerts to texting pedestrians,” in 2016 IEEE Virtual Reality (VR), Mar. 2016, pp. 141–149.
3. P. Rahimian, E. E. O’Neal, S. Zhou, J. M. Plumert, and J. K. Kearney, “Harnessing Vehicle-to-Pedestrian (V2P) Communication Technology: Sending Traffic Warnings to Texting Pedestrians,” Hum Factors, vol. 60, no. 6, pp. 833–843, Sep. 2018.