I See You: Eye Control Mechanisms for Robotic Eyes on an Autonomous Car

The concept of eyes has been proposed to use as a communication modality on an autonomous vehicle (AV) and it has shown benefits for AV-to-pedestrian interaction. In this study, we further explored the eye concept and aim to answer a research question “how can we control the eyes more intuitively based on an AV's behaviors?”. First, we defined three different self-driving modes (normal, active and inactive) and we developed three algorithms to control robotic eyes on a car based on the three modes. These three modes give us more control over various parameters and constraints, which help us in making the eye mechanism, more natural at different scenarios. We conducted a pilot study to tested our algorithms with a simple eye prototype. The result was positive, there are certain challenges in this research topic. We discussed the challenges and this has shown useful insights for future development of AV-to-pedestrian interaction.