College of Transportation Engineering, Chang'an University, Xi'an 710018, China.
College of Transportation Engineering, Chang'an University, Xi'an 710018, China; Key Laboratory of Transport Industry of Management, Control and Cycle Repair Technology for Traffic Network Facilities in Ecological Security Barrier Area, Chang'an University, Xi'an 710018, China.
J Safety Res. 2023 Sep;86:148-163. doi: 10.1016/j.jsr.2023.05.006. Epub 2023 May 22.
Vehicle automation is thought to improve road safety since numerous accidents are caused by human error. However, the lack of active involvement and monotonous driving environments due to automation may contribute to drivers' passive fatigue and sleepiness. Previous research indicated that non-driving related tasks (NDRTs) were beneficial in maintaining drivers' arousal levels but detrimental to takeover performance.
A 3·2 mixed design (between subjects: driving condition; within subjects: takeover orders) simulator experiment was conducted to explore the development of driver sleepiness in prolonged automated driving context and the effect of NDRTs on driver sleepiness development, and to further evaluate the impact of driver sleepiness and NDRTs on takeover performance. Sixty-three participants were randomly assigned to three driving conditions, each lasting 60 min: automated driving while performing driving environment monitoring task; visual NDRTs task; and visual NDRTs with scheduled driving environment monitoring task. Two hazardous events occurring at about the 5th and 55th min needed to be handled during the respective driving.
Drivers performing monitoring tasks had a faster development of driver sleepiness than drivers in the other two conditions in terms of both subjective and objective indicators. Takeover performance of drivers performing monitoring task were undermined due to driver sleepiness in terms of braking and steering reaction times, the time between saccade latency and braking or steering reaction times, and so forth. Additionally, NDRTs impaired the drivers' takeover ability in terms of saccade latency, max braking pedal input, max steering velocity, minimum time to collision, and so forth. This study shows that NDRTs with scheduled road environment monitoring task improve takeover performance during prolonged automated driving by helping to maintain driver alertness.
Findings from this work provide some technical assistance in the development of driver sleepiness monitoring systems for conditionally automated vehicles.
人们认为车辆自动化可以提高道路安全，因为许多事故是由人为错误造成的。然而，由于自动化，驾驶员可能会缺乏主动参与和单调的驾驶环境，从而导致被动疲劳和困倦。先前的研究表明，非驾驶相关任务（NDRTs）有助于保持驾驶员的警觉水平，但会对接管性能产生不利影响。
采用 3·2 混合设计（被试间：驾驶条件；被试内：接管顺序）模拟器实验，探讨在长时间自动化驾驶环境中驾驶员困倦的发展，以及 NDRTs 对驾驶员困倦发展的影响，并进一步评估驾驶员困倦和 NDRTs 对接管性能的影响。63 名参与者被随机分配到三个驾驶条件中，每个条件持续 60 分钟：执行驾驶环境监控任务的自动驾驶；视觉 NDRTs 任务；以及有计划的驾驶环境监控任务和视觉 NDRTs。在各自的驾驶过程中，大约在第 5 分钟和第 55 分钟需要处理两个危险事件。
在主观和客观指标方面，执行监控任务的驾驶员比其他两种条件下的驾驶员更快地出现困倦发展。由于驾驶员困倦，执行监控任务的驾驶员的接管性能在制动和转向反应时间、扫视潜伏期和制动或转向反应时间之间的时间等方面受到影响。此外，NDRTs 在扫视潜伏期、最大制动踏板输入、最大转向速度、最小碰撞时间等方面损害了驾驶员的接管能力。本研究表明，有计划的道路环境监控任务的 NDRTs 通过帮助保持驾驶员警觉，改善了长时间自动化驾驶中的接管能力。
这项工作的结果为条件自动化车辆的驾驶员困倦监测系统的开发提供了一些技术支持。
