Cooperative Overtaking: Overcoming Automated Vehicles' Obstructed Sensor Range via Driver Help

Automated vehicles will eventually operate safely without the need of human supervision and fallback, nevertheless, scenarios will remain that are managed more efficiently by a human driver. A common approach to overcome such weaknesses is to shift control to the driver. Control transitions are challenging due to human factor issues like post-automation behavior changes. We thus investigated cooperative overtaking wherein driver and vehicle complement each other: drivers support the vehicle to perceive the traffic scene and decide when to execute a maneuver whereas the system steers. We explored two maneuver approval and cancel techniques on touchscreens, and show that cooperative overtaking is feasible, both interaction techniques provide good usability and were preferred over manual maneuver execution. However, participants disregarded rear traffic in more complex situations. Consequently, system weaknesses can be overcome with cooperation, but drivers should be assisted by an adaptive system.