Blink is a two-way communications device that adds a human touch to this interaction with non-human drivers through a new language that communicates vehicle intent and promotes pedestrian influence on its decisions.

Blink involves material embedded into the four corners of the autonomous vehicle, which display the silhouettes of pedestrians around the vehicle to show that the vehicle has acknowledged their presence. lf the intention of the pedestrian is unclear, Blink flashes their silhouette and emits a tone to ask the pedestrian what they want to do. The pedestrian can then directly communicate their intent back to the vehicle with a gesture, to which the vehicle responds by changing the color of their silhouette to either red or green (depending on gesture and speed of the vehicle) and emitting another accompanying tone to acknowledge the pedestrian’s intent. Blink currently learns and responds to the human gestures using a form of supervised machine learning, where there is a training dataset that teaches the system the meaning behind human gestures. The system developed allows for the training of hundreds of culture-specific gestures that would reflect the complexity of the road situation across different localities. By developing this new common language and standard of trust between people and autonomous vehicles, where pedestrian presence and intent is communicated and acknowledged, *Blink* can encourage a more empathetic manifestation of autonomous technology to create a safer and more pleasant urban environment for all road users.

Credits

The idea behind Blink comes from a cross-disciplinary team of four masters students of the Innovation Design Engineering MA/MSc Programme at the Royal College of Art and Imperial College London: Adam Bernstein (US) has a background in Electrical Engineering, with experience in the foundation of electric vehicle infrastructure. Raunaq Bose (UK) has a background in Mechanical Engineering, with experience in bringing products from the conceptual stage to market. Leslie Nooteboom (NL) has a background in Industrial Design Engineering, with experience in robotics and the building of a solar-powered racecar. Maya Pindeus (AT) has a background in Architecture, with experience in human-machine interactions.

Lesen Sie mehr auf: starts-prize.aec.at.

This project is presented in the framework of the STARTS Prize 2017. STARTS Prize received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 732019.

PRIA, VÖSI (AT)

Hardly a day goes by without a news story about self-driving cars. Companies are investing huge sums in the development of autonomous vehicles. Ford recently paid $1 billion to acquire a company that specializes in R&D on systems for self-driving cars. Research nationwide and throughout the EU is focusing on autonomous driving. All major carmakers and a few newcomers such as Google and Apple aim to bring out a self-driving car by 2021.

RoboCar is an initiative to spotlight some trendy, cool technology to make young people aware of what is happening now and what future prospects are emerging in the ICT (IT, communication and technology) sector. Interest among young people in careers in the ICT sector is still far too low in comparison to personnel requirements.

There are too few IT apprentices, secondary technical school students interested in IT, and ICT companies offering training in this field. Our aim is to promote enthusiasm among young people for careers in the ICT sector, to interest them in training in this field and to acquaint them with the types of jobs available. Our aim is to promote better contacts between young people who plan to pursue higher education and the ICT sector in general and the VÖSI companies in particular.

Workshop with Young People from the BFI Upper Austria

Self-Driving Cars—Model Construction and Programming

The Ars Electronica Center has been collaborating with the BFI (Careers Advancement Institute) since spring 2017 to give youngsters the opportunity to work on projects in conjunction with the Ars Electronica Festival. The aim is to open up bright prospects for these young people and to strengthen their self-confidence as a solid foundation for their occupational future. In five sessions, the youngsters get support from experts in converting a remote-controlled model car into a self-driving car.

Credits

VÖSI – The Austrian Software Industry Association represents the interests of Austria’s top IT companies. VÖSI was founded in 1986 and currently includes about 30 large and medium-size software and IT companies. Without a healthy software industry, Austria as a business location would be in danger of becoming an auxiliary workshop of more innovative countries.

PRIA – Practical Robotics Institute Austria: Our vision is to prepare and motivate the next generation of researchers, engineers and scientists, and to be the go-to address for pedagogical applications in robotics and ICT.