Natural and Assistive Driving Simulator User Interfaces for CARLA

Abstract: As the autonomous vehicles are getting clo-ser to commercial roll out, the challenges for the developersof the software are getting more complex. One challenge thedevelopers are facing is the interaction between humans andautonomous vehicles in traffic.Such situation requires a hugeamount of data to in order to design and proof test autonomoussystem than can handle complex interactions with humans.Such data can not be collected in real traffic situations withoutcompromising the safety of the human counterparts, thereforesimulations will be necessary. Since human driving behavior ishard to predict, these simulations need human interaction inorder to get valid data of human behaviour.The purpose of thisproject is to develop a driving interface and then evaluate theusers experience in an experiment. To do this we have designedand implemented steering,braking and acceleration on a userinterface for a simulator used in autonomous driving researchcalled Car Learning to Act (CARLA) at the Smart Mobility Lab(SML) at KTH. We have implemented two driving simulatoruser interfaces, with different levels of information feedbackto the user. To evaluate the developed user interface, a surveywas designed to measure how intuitive the driving experiencewas while also comparing it to the original setup at SML. Thesurvey showed that the driving experience was more intuitivewith the two developed user interfaces and that 60% would feelcomfortable using the new systems on a real vehicle in traffic.