User Perception and the Effect of Forms and Movements in Human-Machine Interaction Applying Steer-By-Wire for Autonomous Vehicles

Abstract

As a result of the increasing trend towards highly autonomous driving, steer-by-wire (SbW) is currently experiencing a further development surge in terms of design as well as engineering. Our work explores the perception of human-machine interaction (HMI) by examining how people respond to the design and behavior of new SbW systems when asked to evaluate how much they are innovative, futuristic, acceptable, human-like and convenient depending on forms, sizes and movements. We develop eight video files to measure people’s perception and analyze the relationship between people’s perception and their profiles such as their age group, gender, car ownership and their background (either they are designers or engineers). There is no significant difference of people’s emotion by size and speed of movement based upon design alternatives we proposed. People perceived differently by shapes. Our results show that people find two shapes (circle type vs. bar type) significantly different in terms of traditional vs. futuristic, unacceptable vs. acceptable and inconvenient vs. convenient. We also find that younger group (20’s) is less sensitive to bar type’s acceptability than people in 30–40’s. Men compared to women and engineers compared to designers find bar type less convenient than circle type. It is possible to infer that new SbW systems are likely to appeal to younger people who are in 20’s and do not own a car yet, women or designers than the other groups respectively.