Ready for take-over? A new driver assistance system for an automated classification of driver take-over readiness

Recent studies analyzing driver behavior report that various factors may influence a driver's take-over readiness when resuming control after an automated driving section. However, there has been little effort made to transfer and integrate these findings into an automated system which classifies the driver's take-over readiness and derives the expected take-over quality. This study now introduces a new advanced driver assistance system to classify the driver's takeover readiness in conditionally automated driving scenarios. The proposed system works preemptively, i.e., the driver is warned in advance if a low take-over readiness is to be expected. The classification of the take-over readiness is based on three information sources: (i) the complexity of the traffic situation, (ii) the current secondary task of the driver, and (iii) the gazes at the road. An evaluation based on a driving simulator study with 81 subjects showed that the proposed system can detect the take-over readiness with an accuracy of 79%. Moreover, the impact of the character of the take-over intervention on the classification result is investigated. Finally, a proof of concept of the novel driver assistance system is provided showing that more than half of the drivers with a low take-over readiness would be warned preemptively with only a 13% false alarm rate.