With many automakers striving to revolutionize the industry, autonomous driving is just on the horizon. However, there are many hurdles engineers must first overcome before mass production of such models can take place. For instance, how will driverless cars communicate with pedestrians? This is one of the questions the Ford Motor Company has proposed. To find the answer, it has employed researchers at the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute to study this interaction.
How would you react to a driverless car? This guy dressed as a car seat to find out: https://t.co/JGwpdljnlZ pic.twitter.com/8sc9lL3Ong
— WIRED (@WIRED) September 14, 2017
As demonstrated in the vehicle, one solution to this problem is the lighting system embedded into the windshield. The bars of light blink in different speeds and patterns to convey to people when the car is accelerating, decelerating, and moving. This will eliminate the need to signal by waving hands, nodding heads, and other human gestures. Once this technology is made accessible, the hope is that people will acclimate to it in the same way that traffic lights indicate when to stop and go.