Hello all, We will have our bi-weekly HCI group meeting at *11 am* on Tuesday Aug 27th, in *BA 5256*. Karthik Mahadevan, an incoming PhD student who will join the lab this September, will give a talk on interaction with autonomous vehicles. Please see more details below.

Title: Exploring the Design of Autonomous Vehicle-Pedestrian Interaction

Abstract: In today's interaction with vehicles at crosswalks, pedestrians rely on cues originating from the vehicle and the driver. Vehicle cues relate to its kinematics such as speed and stopping distance while driver cues are concerned with cues such as eye gaze and contact, head movement, and hand gestures. In autonomous vehicles, however, a driver is not expected to be on-board to provide cues to pedestrians. We attempted to tackle the problem of designing novel ways to facilitate autonomous vehicle-pedestrian interaction at crosswalks. We propose interfaces which communicate an autonomous vehicle's awareness and intent as a means of helping pedestrians make safe crossing decisions.

Bio: Karthik Mahadevan is an MSc candidate at the University of Calgary’s Department of Computer Science, where he is currently wrapping up his research on autonomous vehicle-pedestrian interaction. Karthik is an incoming DGP PhD student this Fall and will be supervised by Dr. Tovi Grossman. His research interests are primarily in human-robot interaction and human-computer interaction.

Food will be served. Look forward to seeing you there.

Thanks, Jiannan