Autonomous Vehicle Visual Language Syntax for Operator Information Processing
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Solution Overview
Problem
Autonomous vehicles lack an effective visual language system to communicate complex information and warnings to operators in a consistent and understandable manner, especially in unfamiliar situations, which can lead to delayed processing and decision-making.
Innovation Solution
An autonomous vehicle visual language system that uses a structured syntax composed of visual parts of speech (nouns, verbs, adverbs, and objects) to convey planned actions, reasons, and accuracy, displayed on various interfaces, with personalization based on operator responses to improve understanding and adapt to individual preferences.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Productivity
If a structured visual language system with visual syntax is implemented, then operator understanding and processing speed improve, but system complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The visual language system segments complex information into discrete visual parts of speech (nouns, verbs, adverbs, objects) that can be individually processed and combined. Each visual element represents a specific grammatical category with consistent visual characteristics, allowing operators to parse complex messages systematically rather than processing undifferentiated visual data
Solution Approach 2:
The visual syntax creates universal visual grammatical rules that apply across all warning types and scenarios. The same visual parts of speech and syntactic structures convey consistent meanings regardless of context, enabling operators to transfer understanding from familiar warnings to novel situations without learning numerous isolated icon meanings
2Loss of information
If visual elements share a common basis with structured layering, then complex information display improves, but design complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
Complex information is segmented into hierarchical visual layers where basic visual elements (colors, shapes, positions) serve as foundational building blocks. These elementary visual components are combined according to grammatical rules to form increasingly complex meanings, allowing systematic construction of information displays from a limited set of visual primitives
Solution Approach 2:
The system uses consistent visual parameters (color, position, size, orientation) that can be varied systematically to convey different grammatical meanings. By changing specific visual parameters while maintaining structural consistency, the system expresses diverse information types using the same visual vocabulary, reducing design complexity through parameter variation rather than creating entirely different visual elements
Data Source
AI summary
The autonomous vehicle visual language system displays a plan sentence to an operator of an autonomous vehicle. The plan sentence includes visual syntax, the visual syntax being images displayed in predetermined configurations to convey specific information associated with any maneuvers the autonomous vehicle plans to execute. The visual syntax allows for a structured layering of information such that the plan sentence can display more complex information. The operator of the autonomous vehicle can process individual warnings and information more quickly, even when the operator has never seen a particular warning or element of information before. Additionally, the system 100 allows for personalization of a driver model to more closely reflect the operator's driving style, which is then implemented in the visual language displayed as the plan sentence.