In August 2021, Anna Aldea graduated cum laude at Delft University of Technology on work within the MEDIATOR project. She developed a virtual reality tool to facilitate designing and testing human machine interfaces (HMIs) for automated vehicles.

MEDIATOR is developing a system that mediates between human drivers and intelligent driving systems, ensuring that the one that is fittest controls the vehicle. A transparent and acceptable HMI is imperative to such a system. A large number of experiments are being conducted to design and evaluate different HMI concepts.

As Anna phrases it in the abstract of her master’s thesis: “Due to its unique qualities, which allow us to simulate highly detailed and interactive environments, Virtual Reality is considered useful as a tool to support product evaluation and aid in the design process. This is particularly true in the earlier design phases when the development of high fidelity prototypes is out of reach.“

The tool was developed at SWOV Institute for Road Safety Research in collaboration with the TU Delft departments Industrial Design Engineering and Sustainable Design Engineering. After her graduation, Anna continued working at SWOV for the MEDIATOR project where her Virtual Reality tool is currently being used for an HMI evaluation study.

Anna’s thesis and a movie in which the VR tool is being demonstrated can be found here »