AIcon Watch

Smoothing the transition process 
towards autonomous driving.

goal

Design a product or service that gives more value to the autonomous Audi AIcon vehicle.

2018

The AIcon is a fully autonomous car designed by Audi. The transition towards autonomous driving is challenging, humans love to be in control and do not trust automated systems in their decision making. The group goal was to let people experience trust by creating a transparent relationship with autonomous transport. Research showed this is done by making the system easily understandable for the user. The system should understand and feel empathy with the user, the car is the one that has to listen to the passenger. Analysis has been conducted in the field of trust, emotion and learning in combination with digital systems.

exploration

Artificial Empathy, A.E.

The difficulty lies within the way we can seamlessly understand and/or feel what someone wants. With the use of machine learning and data processing, we can make an accurate estimation of situations. Sensors can find patterns based on the body’s response towards those situations, has this ever been recorded/experienced by the system in the past? Observing the human’s behaviour and storing this data makes it possible to predict what he or she is going to do or feel based on triggers like body temperature, sweat levels and heart-rate. Several ideas based on this strategy were developed all aiming to increase the trust between the passenger and the autonomous car.

concept

The AIcon Watch

You will receive your AIcon watch during the pre-order process of the AIcon. The watch will track your driving style in your current car. It will build up a persona of your driving style, it measures your speed, location of the car, sweat-levels, heartbeat and muscle tension while driving. By receiving more data the algorithm learns to predict your decision making in traffic situations. When receiving your Audi AIcon the watch will transfer your personalised driver profile to the autonomous car. It will now respond to traffic situations the same way you did, this makes you feel comfortable with its decision making. The watch automatically takes your mood into account while predicting. You can easily overwrite the system by turning the dial on your watch, from a relaxed to sportive driving style. Yet again the system will learn from this adjustment and knows how to predict the situation better next time.

The watch determines an emotion by measuring heart-rate, sweat levels and muscle tension with its sensors. If the passenger is stressed the AIcon will drive more relaxed.

The AIcon watch is a stylish classical icon. It adds value to your personality and status as Audi driver. It is a piece of yourself to be proud of.

The watch establishes a personal driving style by measuring speed, location and angle while driving in the manual car. This style is adopted by the Audi AIcon to smoothen the transition to autonomous driving.

Partnering up with current companions of Audi like Tag Heuer for the watch and Nvidia for the technology, the company can efficiently carry out the project.

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