Directed Research, Autonomous Cars
September 2015, University at Buffalo, New York
Interaction Design, Human-Computer-Interaction, Autonomous Driving
The Research
As I was sitting outside a cafe in Downtown Buffalo, drinking tea and looking at the surroundings, I was intrigued by a middle aged man parking his car and running to validate his parking ticket before the traffic police caught up to his car. I imagined that in the future, with developments in the automobile industry, such problems would be a thing of the past. That inspired me to further ponder over autonomous cars and other technological developments in the transportation sector. This sowed the seeds for my directed research on self-driving cars and the impact of such a technology on human behavior. This project was a Directed Research Project, to understand and choose a topic to further investigate and explore as part of the Master Thesis. At the end of the directed research, I came up with a hypothesis for basing my Thesis in the following semester.
A brief introduction to the directed research
In order for a car to take the role of a driver, it needs to be equipped with various sensors and cameras that would transmit data to the computer and help the car make decisions on the go. These sensors and cameras presents us with the opportunity to design an interactive spatial experience for the passengers. Passengers now have the opportunity to spend the time while travelling to do several other things.
3D measured model of an Asus Scanner. There are two cameras placed a distance apart, this helps in depth sensing
A sample of how a computer senses the environment, using a kinect scanner
Internet of Cars by Dr. Chris Speed speaks about the value added services possible with the use of car-to-car communication and ubiquitous computing. This project is a major inspiration for my thesis project.
In addition to the sensors and cameras, the cars can also communicate with other cars, objects and even other infrastructure on the road. This laid the foundation for further exploring the idea of using the car as a means of communication with the world. At the end of the Directed Research, I decided to take this study further to examine ways to use self-driving cars to create a connection between the passenger and the outside world.
