MSc.

Onderzoeksproject

Hand gestures for interaction between an automated vehicle and a cyclist

Supervisor 1: Pavlo Bazilinskyy (TU Delft) p.bazilinskyy@tudelft.nl

Supervisor 2: Georgios Grigoropoulos M.Sc. (TU München) george.grigoropoulos@tum.de
Supervisor 3: Riender Happee (TU Delft) r.happee@tudelft.nl

Description
Traffic situations in modern urban traffic
involve multiple agents. Future traffic will be no
different [1]. Cyclists will also be driving alongside
automated vehicles (AVs). How should AVs
communicate with the cyclists? One of the
possible options is the use of hand gestures, just
like in modern traffic. We have explored the
effects of hand gestures on AV-pedestrian
communication [2]. The application of such
gestures for situations involving an AV and a
cyclist is yet to be explored. The proposed
research question of the project is “What are the
effects of using hand gestures for AV-cyclist
communication on traffic safety?”
TU München operates a cycling simulator
capable of testing various models of the use of
hand gestures [3]. The project will involve
designing and conducting preliminary tests of hand gestures using a coupled simulator [1] and an
Xsens motion suit (https://www.xsens.com/products/mvn-analyze), as well as conducing a
simulator experiment at TU München. A parallel MSc Thesis will be started at TU München, where
a focus will be on the experiment and training a k-means model for real-time gesture recognition.
You will interact with the student hosted by TU München.
The expertise of Pavlo Bazilinskyy is in the area of directional and spatialised feedback in traffic
involving multiple agents. The expertise of Georgios Grigoropoulos is in the area of analysis and
prediction of bicyclist behaviour for automated driving functions. You will be supervised jointly by
Pavlo and co-supervised by Georgios.
Requirements: intermediate programming skills, basic understanding of human factors aspects
of giving feedback to humans.

References:
[1] P. Bazilinskyy, L. Kooijman, D. Dodou, and J. C. F. De Winter, “Coupled simulator for research on the
interaction between pedestrians and (automated) vehicles,” in 19th Driving Simulation Conference (DSC),
2020.
[2] M. R. Epke, “Hand gestures as a form of communicating crossing intent from pedestrians to automated
vehicles,” Delft University of Technology, 2019.
[3] A. Keler, G. Grigoropoulos, H. Kaths, M. Spangler, and F. Busch, “The TUM-VT bicycle simulator – recent
projects on bicycle traffic research,” 2020, doi: 10.13140/RG.2.2.21920.64002.