Enlightening mode awareness: Guiding drivers in the transition between manual and automated driving modes via ambient light

Driving an automated vehicle requires a clear understanding of its automation capabilities and resulting duties on the driver’s side. This is true across all levels of automation but especially so on SAE levels 3 and below, where the driver has an active driving task performance and/or monitoring role. If the automation capabilities and a driver’s understanding of them do not match, misuse can occur, resulting in decreased safety. In this paper, we present the results from a simulator study that investigated driving mode awareness support via ambient lights across automation levels 0, 2, and 3. We found lights in the steering wheel to be useful for momentary and lights below the windshield for permanent indication of automation-relevant information, whereas lights in the footwell showed to have little to no positive effects on driving mode awareness.