Building a Better WarBot: Ethical Issues in the Design of Unmanned Systems for Military Applications

Unmanned systems in military applications will often play a role in determining the success or failure of combat missions and thus in determining who lives and dies in times of war. Designers of UMS must therefore consider ethical, as well as operational, requirements and limits when developing UMS. I group the ethical issues involved in UMS design under two broad headings, Building Safe Systems and Designing for the Law of Armed Conflict, and identify and discuss a number of issues under each of these headings. As well as identifying issues, I offer some analysis of their implications and how they might be addressed.

Individually constructed criteria for perception of urban transportation means – An approach based on Kelly’s personal construct theory

Understanding of acceptance of electric mobility has been typically discussed by a comparison of vehicles with different types of propulsion engines, battery electric vehicles and vehicles with an internal combustion engine. Nevertheless, electric mobility comprehends a combination of public transport and electric vehicles. The aim of this paper is to understand peoples’ outlook on electric mobility by identifying shared aspects of the assessment of battery electric vehicles and different user perspectives on transportation. A special research design in the form of repertory grids provides an opportunity to study the underlying causes of the cognitive perceptions and emotions relating to electric mobility. Cognitive interviews motivate respondents to reflect beyond the insights provided by standard forms of interview. Especially for the topic of battery electric vehicles, prejudices - for instance, those propagated by the media - are discarded and the actual requirements and patterns of mobility become visible. The special tasks involved in the interviews lead, for example, to deliberation on how to integrate battery charging processes into existing mobility patterns.This special method reveals that individuals take an interest in more characteristics of modes of transport than those that are usually analysed when researching electric mobility. In addition, three anticipation clusters can be identified for individuals with a higher affinity for cars. First, the perception of battery electric vehicles shows high levels of similarity to cars with internal combustion engines and that differentiating between types of engines is meaningless. Second, battery electric vehicles are perceived as a part of urban public transport. Third, battery electric vehicles are viewed as similar to pedelecs and segways, whereas questions of range, innovation and environmental aspects play a greater role in perceptions. These results lead to the conclusion that when studying the acceptance of BEVs, a comparison between cars with internal combustion engines and battery electric vehicles is not sufficient to grasp the complete user perspective. An analysis within the framework of a wider range of modes of transport is required in order to address people’s transportation needs.     

Interaction between pedestrians and automated vehicles: A Wizard of Oz experiment

Automated vehicles (AVs) will be introduced on public roads in the future, meaning that traditional vehicles and AVs will be sharing the urban space. There is currently little knowledge about the interaction between pedestrians and AVs from the point of view of the pedestrian in a real-life environment. Pedestrians may not know with which type of vehicle they are interacting, potentially leading to stress and altered crossing decisions. For example, pedestrians may show elevated stress and conservative crossing behavior when the AV driver does not make eye contact and performs a non-driving task instead. It is also possible that pedestrians assume that an AV would always yield (leading to short critical gaps). This study aimed to determine pedestrians’ crossing decisions when interacting with an AV as compared to when interacting with a traditional vehicle. We performed a study on a closed road section where participants (N = 24) encountered a Wizard of Oz AV and a traditional vehicle in a within-subject design. In the Wizard of Oz setup, a fake ‘driver’ sat on the driver seat while the vehicle was driven by the passenger by means of a joystick. Twenty scenarios were studied regarding vehicle conditions (traditional vehicle, ‘driver’ reading a newspaper, inattentive driver in a vehicle with “self-driving” sign on the roof, inattentive driver in a vehicle with “self-driving” signs on the hood and door, attentive driver), vehicle behavior (stopping vs. not stopping), and approach direction (left vs. right). Participants experienced each scenario once, in a randomized order. This allowed assessing the behavior of participants when interacting with AVs for the first time (no previous training or experience). Post-experiment interviews showed that about half of the participants thought that the vehicle was (sometimes) driven automatically. Measurements of the participants’ critical gap (i.e., the gap below which the participant will not attempt to begin crossing the street) and self-reported level of stress showed no statistically significant differences between the vehicle conditions. However, results from a post-experiment questionnaire indicated that most participants did perceive differences in vehicle appearance, and reported to have been influenced by these features. Future research could adopt more fine-grained behavioral measures, such as eye tracking, to determine how pedestrians react to AVs. Furthermore, we recommend examining the effectiveness of dynamic AV-to-pedestrian communication, such as artificial lights and gestures.     

Teenage bicyclists' perceptions toward automated vehicles and their associated traffic infrastructure: A focus group discussion

Automated vehicles (AVs) can improve traffic safety for vulnerable road-users like bicyclists. It is most likely that current young people will be the ones to use these vehicles and interact with them. However, very few studies have focused on bicyclist-AV interaction, with little to no inclusion of teenage bicyclists. This research used a virtual focus group study with 25 teenage bicyclists in six groups. Participants were presented with potential designs of infrastructures and communicating interfaces, they discussed pros and cons for each design, and answered multiple surveys. Overall, teenage bicyclists showed positive perceptions toward AVs. They preferred spacious lanes for bicyclists and physical barriers separating AVs and bicyclists. Teenagers chose visual interfaces with familiar icons; nevertheless, they recommended both visual and audible interfaces to ensure bicyclists’ attention and address the need of visually and audibly impaired populations. Future researchers and stakeholders will be benefited from the methodology and outcomes of this research.     

Predicting pedestrians’ intention to cross the road in front of automated vehicles in risky situations

Due to the absence of a human driver, the introduction of fully automated vehicles (FAVs) may bring new safety challenges to the traffic system, especially when FAVs interact with vulnerable road users such as pedestrians. To ensure safer interactions between pedestrians and FAVs, this questionnaire-based study aims to understand Australian pedestrians’ intention to engage in risky road-crossing behaviors when they interact with FAVs vs. human-driven vehicles (HDVs). A 2 × 2 between-subject design was utilized, in which two risky road-crossing scenarios were designed and took into account the vehicle type (FAV vs. HDV) and vehicle speed (30 km/h vs. 50 km/h). A total of 493 participants (aged 18–77) were randomly assigned to one of the four experimental conditions and completed an online questionnaire based on the extended Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB). This questionnaire measured pedestrians’ intentions to cross the road in the assigned scenarios as well as the motivational factors behind these intentions in terms of attitude, subjective norm, perceived behavioral control, perceived risk and trust in the vehicle. The results show that pedestrians had significantly higher intentions to cross the road in front of approaching FAVs than HDVs. Participants also reported a lower risk perception of crossing in front of FAVs and greater trust in this type of vehicle. Attitude, subjective norm, and perceived behavioral control were significant predictors of intentions to engage in risky road-crossing behavior. Findings of this study provide important implications for the development and implementation of FAVs in the future road transport system.     

Effects of mode distinction,user visibility,and vehicle appearance on mode confusion when interacting with highly automated vehicles

Automated vehicles are expected to communicate with pedestrians at least during the introductory phase, for example, via LED strips, displays, or loudspeakers. While these are added to minimize confusion and increase trust, the human passenger within the vehicle could perform motions that a pedestrian could misinterpret as opposing the vehicle’s communication. To evaluate potential solutions to this problem, we conducted an online video-based within-subjects experiment (N = 59). The solutions under evaluation were mode distinction, vehicle appearance, and the visibility of the passenger via a tintable windshield. Our results show that especially the mode distinction and the conspicuous sensor attached to the automated vehicle showed positive effects. A tintable windshield, however, was negatively assessed. Thus, our work helps to design eHMI concepts to introduce automated vehicles safely by informing about feasible methods to avoid mode confusion.     

Experiences of older adults interacting with a shared autonomous vehicle and recommendations for future implementation

IntroductionA recognised potential benefit of autonomous vehicles is increased mobility for older adults. However, this group is more apprehensive about adoption, which may hinder uptake. Shared autonomous vehicles (SAVs) represent a use case that may be especially relevant for older people due to emerging applications in retirement villages and similar precincts. However, little research has examined the SAV-related concerns of older adults and strategies to address them. This study used an exploratory approach involving SAV exposure to identify strategies that may increase older people’s receptiveness to SAVs.MethodOlder adults living in retirement villages (n = 63) were interviewed while interacting with an SAV to examine their needs, expectations, and concerns regarding SAVs. The interview data were coded and thematically analysed.ResultsParticipants recommended the following approaches to ensuring SAVs are useful and acceptable to older adults: providing physical accessibility for those with mobility impairments, comfortable and practical internal layouts, and operating SAVs on convenient routes at useful speeds. Strategies such as exposing older adults to SAVs in operation to encourage uptake and initially ensuring a human assistant is present were suggested methods of increasing receptivity.DiscussionThe findings suggest older passengers are likely to share many of the same reactions to SAVs as the broader population, but with a stronger focus on issues relating to accessibility and the physical layout of the vehicles. The solutions to these issues suggested by the study participants may be useful for those designing SAVs for use in older people’s settings and beyond.     

Understanding charging behaviour of electric vehicle users

We examined the psychological dynamics underlying charging behaviour of electric vehicle (EV) users. Data from 79 EV users were assessed in a 6-month EV field study. On average, users charged their EV three times per week, drove 38 km per day, and they typically had a large surplus of energy remaining upon recharging. Based on first findings concerning charging style among mobile phone users, we hypothesized that user–battery interaction style (UBIS) is a relevant variable for understanding charging behaviour of EV users. We developed measures to assess UBIS. Results show that it is a relatively temporally stable characteristic which also shows some cross-device consistency. As predicted by our conceptual model, UBIS and comfortable range explain the charge level at which people typically recharged. UBIS was related to users’ confidence in their mental model of range dynamics, the utilization of range, and to excess energy from renewable sources. This research has implications for optimizing sustainability of electric mobility systems.