Evaluation of Driver’s Sense of Control in Lane Change Maneuvers with a Cooperative Steering Control System

Balancing safety and comfort is an important requirement in highly automated driving. In order to achieve safe and comfortable transportation using automated driving technology, cooperative driving, in which the driver and the system work together on the common driving task, may be more effective than a system that completely replaces the driver. Therefore, in this research, we address a cooperative driving system that provides steering assistance and steer-angle regulation based on force-feedback and steer-by-wire systems. We evaluate the safety and comfort of the system through a simulated driving study under different levels of system intervention in lane change maneuvers. Experimental results show that steer-angle regulation without force feedback gives the highest sense of control (involvement in driving) to drivers, although the driving maneuver is overridden by the system to maintain safety in the current condition.