Ford, Virginia Tech use van with driver in 'seat suit' to test autonomous signals

Sept. 20, 2017
Sitting in the driver's seat, you might wave a few fingers repeatedly — as in, "go ahead" — to let a pedestrian or cyclist know it's okay to cross in front of your car. But what if there's no driver and it's a self-driving car or truck?

Sitting in the driver's seat, you might wave a few fingers repeatedly — as in, "go ahead" — to let a pedestrian or cyclist know it's okay to cross in front of your car. But what if there's no driver and it's a self-driving car or truck?

With all the efforts to engineer and test autonomous vehicles, that's a point that doesn't come up often. Drivers today might use things like head nods or hand waves to communicate with walkers, cyclists, motorcyclists and drivers in other vehicles near them. It's usually to establish an order of operations, such as whether you're moving or letting someone else move first.

Ford and the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute are exploring how a self-driving vehicle will give those kinds of signals, absent a body behind the wheel to do so.

Click through the slideshow to learn about the methods they tested out last month and see some of reactions the test vehicle, a Transit Connect van, got from those who spotted and interacted with it. 

Ford noted that while the intent of these efforts is to help develop industry-standard visual signals for autonomous vehicles, the company is also working on ways to communicate with the blind and visually impaired.

About the Author

Aaron Marsh

Before computerization had fully taken hold and automotive work took someone who speaks engine, Aaron grew up in Upstate New York taking cars apart and fixing and rewiring them, keeping more than a few great jalopies (classics) on the road that probably didn't deserve to be. He spent a decade inside the Beltway covering Congress and the intricacies of the health care system before a stint in local New England news, picking up awards for both pen and camera.

He's written about you-name-it, from transportation and law and the courts to events of all kinds and telecommunications, and landed in trucking when he joined Fleet Owner in July 2015. Long an editorial leader, he's a keeper of knowledge at Fleet Owner ready to dive in on the technical and the topical inside and all around trucking—and still turns a wrench or two. Or three. 

And he's never without a camera, or so rumor has it.

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