With the goal at Project54 being to produce solutions in order to create a safer environment in which the police officer can control all of the lights, radar, and various devices within his/her police car, it is interesting to see the need for similar technology within regular cars to solve the problem of distracted drivers. Recently, the New York Times featured the series “Driven to Distraction”. Along with examining the issue of distracted drivers, the series allows you to “Gauge Your Distraction” with an interactive game that illustrates the large distraction that texting while driving creates. Similar to the goals of Project54, the public should become more aware of the dangers of in-car distractions and what can be done to limit these hazards.

Erika Swanson

Hello ecebloggers,

Over the past semester Andrew Kun, Tim Paek, Zeljko Medenica, Oskar Palinko, and I have been investigating the influence of Personal Navigation Devices (PNDs) on driving. Nowadays these devices are widespread in vehicles. They typically display the real-time location of the vehicle on a map and play spoken prompts when drivers need to turn. While such devices are less distracting than paper directions, their graphical display may distract users from their primary task of driving.

We have conducted experiments in our high fidelity driving simulator to see the influence of two PNDs on driving:

• the influence of a standard PND, with a combined visual (electronic map) and spoken output,
  
• and the influence of a PND with spoken output only.

The first goal of the experiments was to find out if a PND with combined output causes drivers to spend less time looking on the road ahead than a PND with spoken output only. The second goal was to examine the effects of glancing at the PND’s visual display on driving performance. We hypothesized that a PND with combined output will influence the percent dwell time (PDT) on the outside world negatively when compared to the PND with spoken output only, i.e. drivers will be more distracted by it. Our second hypothesis was that PND’s visual display will influence negatively on the driving performance. We expected an increase in the lane position and steering wheel angle variances to occur whenever drivers look away from the road.

The experiment results showed that our hypotheses were correct:

• We found that drivers using a navigation system with a graphical display indeed spent less time looking at the road compared to those using a navigation system with spoken directions only.
• Glancing at the display was correlated with higher variance in driving performance measures.

The video below shows how the PND’s visual display influences driving performance.

With respect to designing in-car navigation aids, our results seem to suggest that if users can trust a PND enough to follow the spoken directions they are given, even when they are lost, a navigation system with no visual display may be the most favorable option since visual attention and consequently driving performance will likely be improved.

This work will be presented at the AutomtoiveUI2009 conference.

Have a good one,

Nemanja Memarovic

In a world where technology is everywhere - from the common uses of cell phones, driving electric powered vehicles (Hypercar),space exploration, and even having an operation performed solely by robotic arm – machines have become dominant in society. At the turn of the century, Eye Tracking became the leading invention in technology. Now Eye tacking is used in many research development programs; such as, to track the behavior and interest of him/her in commercial advertisements for companies. Recently, a company called Seeing Machines launched FaceLab - the award-winning line of Real-Time, Non-Intrusive Eye, Blink and Head Trackers. The majority of the car industry use this technology as their de facto standard of vision-based human performance measurement; hoping to gain the inside scoop on human behavior, safety, prototyping next generation driving assistance systems, and simulator studies. This is quite beneficial to companies and the economy by cutting down and/or stopping the production of unwanted items. If taken to the next level, Seeing Machine could be used in Project 54 or even all law-enforcement vehicles.

Police officers could benefit from the Seeing Machine in many ways: 1) as a safety prospective, it will pervade video to help an officer or court determine the cause of an accident and breaking of the law; 2) the officer could use it to automatically scan a license plate and run a criminal background check based on the vehicle’s owner without losing sight of the vehicle; 3) as technology develops, an officer would be able to take a picture of a pedestrian  and cross-check their face in the “wanted” database to minimize crime.   The only limitation to technology is our imagination, but in the mean time Seeing Machine is looking forward to expanding and making many things possible with eye tracking. Interested? Check out the video below to see a prototype of eye tracking inside a cop car without applications (i.e. ability to run car plates and faces).

During the fourth week of June 2009, the biannual Driving Assessment conference was held at the beautiful Big Sky Resort, Montana. This is one of the most important driving related conferences. Andrew Kun and I had a poster presentation here, with the following title: Comparison of the Effects of Two Push-to-Talk Button Implementations on Driver Hand Position and Visual Attention. The poster session went very well with lots of interested visitors.

There were also many other interesting presentations and posters. Most of the participants came from North America and interestingly, Sweden. Also, driving assessment related companies were present. Realtime Technologies and SeeingMachines showed a new feature of the RTI simulator, which allows constant monitoring of the object in the simulation at which the driver is looking at.

The nature around Big Sky is beautiful. It is primarily a ski center, but there is plenty to see during the summer too. Its proximity to Yellowstone National Park gives it even more value.

Oszkar

On Monday UNH Civil Engineering Professor Paul Ossenbruggen gave a talk in a joint ECE-Math seminar on the topic of traffic. His talk was inspired by Tom Vanderbilt’s book which is also entitled Traffic. Paul introduced a number of interesting topics, such as the Braess’ paradox, system optimization issues and the use of intelligent transportation systems.

Paul also had a guest at the talk: Denise Markow, Project Manager at the Traffic Management Center operated by the New Hampshire Department of Transportation. Denise, a UNH alumna, discussed some aspects of the work that goes on at the NHDOT TMC, and invited us for a visit to this impressive facility. I for one have already signed up ;).

Both Paul and Denise stressed the interdisciplinary nature of the work that goes into managing traffic. This is an important message for all of us, students and faculty alike. Paul and Denise, thanks for the informative and enjoyable presentations!

Andrew Kun