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While full automation of road vehicles remains a future goal, shared-control and semi-autonomous driving – involving transitions of control between the human and the machine – are more feasible objectives in the near term. These alternative driving modes will benefit from new research towards novel steering control devices, more suitable where the machine intelligence controls only partially the vehicle. In this paper it is proposed that when the human shares the control of a vehicle with an autonomous or semi-autonomous system, a force control or non-displacement steering wheel (i.e., a steering wheel which does not rotate but detects the applied torque by the human driver) can be advantageous under certain schemes: tight rein or loose rein modes according to the Hmetaphor. We support this proposition with the first experiments, to the best of our knowledge, in which human participants drove in a simulated road scene with a force control steering wheel. The experiments exhibited that humans can adapt promptly to force control steering and are able to control the vehicle smoothly. Different transfer functions are tested, which translate the applied torque at the force control steering wheel to the steering angle at the wheels of the vehicle; it is shown that fractional order transfer functions increment steering stability and control accuracy when using a force control device. Transition of control experiments are also performed with both, a conventional and a force control steering wheel. This prototypical steering system can be realized via steer-by-wire controls, which are already incorporated in commercially available vehicles.

The eight papers in this special issue focus on agent and system transparency in human-machine systems. The concept of transparency is investigated in a variety of contexts of human agent interaction—from a single robot to multiple heterogeneous agents and swarms. Two studies examine the effects of individual and cultural differences and, based on the compelling results, provide design recommendations related to transparent interfaces. One of the papers provides a thorough review on theoretical aspects of agent transparency and empirical findings on operator performance, situation awareness, trust and workload, among other outcomes. These measures are also among some of the most common metrics reported in studies in this special issue.

Automated driving puts severe challenges on the design and testing of automotive user interfaces. In partially automated driving, the driver is still responsible for the vehicle control, but is strongly supported by technology. In highly automated driving, the driver can give control to the automation for a certain time and can get control back e.g., when the automation encounters limits. Despite great technological progress, a truly intuitive way to interact with these automated driving modes is still under research. Project Vorreiter is addressing this by using the inspiration of a rider and a horse to provide intuitive steering gestures on the steering wheel or an alternative device, which initiate maneuvers executed by the automation. These can be supervised, influenced or interrupted by the driver. The gestures are built up in a universal design approach, which helps all drivers, including beginners and drivers with disabilities. After an introduction into the overall philosophy and concept, the contribution focuses on a final step in the project, an overall evaluation of the concept in a driving simulator and presents new data especially on the comparison of swiping gestures and pushing gestures regarding false or true positive or negative detected gestures. Finally, a brief outlook sketches next steps with a new Wizard-of-Oz / theater vehicle.

Human factors in transportation : proceedings of 13th AHFE International Conference on Human Factors in Transportation, New York, USA, July 24-28, 2022 / Editors: Katie Plant, Gesa Praetorius 13. AHFE International Conference on Human Factors in Transportation, New York, NY, USA, 24 Jul 2022 - 28 Jul 2022 13. International Conference on Applied Human Factors and Ergonomics, AHFE 2022, New York, USA, 24 Jul 2022 - 28 Jul 2022; New York, United States of America : AHFE International, AHFE international 60, Advances in transportation 501-507 (2022). doi:10.54941/ahfe1002483, Published by AHFE International, New York, United States of America

New technologies offer new potentials to tackle everyday challenges, but this has only a chance to become true if technology is intelligently integrated with humans, organizations and environment. A good balance between different stakeholders and tension fields is one of the most challenging research questions of Human Systems Integration. Especially in the field of energy, where huge pulls from en-vironmental and societal demands into different directions meet technological pushes from new energy sources and methods. First, a short introduction to the electricity market in Europe is given. Afterwards, the relations between different systems are modelled into a system of systems, fo-cusing on the electricity offering and electricity demanding systems. Relevant sys-tem qualities are analysed. The paper continues developing the system dynamics model and brings the subsystems into relation with each other. It concludes by testing the system dynamics model with alternative approaches in the transfor-mation of the European energy system.

Technological progress in form of machine intelligence increases the capabilities of machines to think and act autonomously on the world. This might only result in human and societal progress if these technical systems are intelligently integrated with humans, organizations and the environment, i.e. with intelligent Human Systems Integration.One key paradigm to enable this is human machine cooperation: The ability of agents to work together (e.g. Hoc & Lemoine 1997ff). An example for this is the relationship of a rider and a horse, which has been successfully translated to technical systems in form of shared and cooperative control (e.g. Flemisch et al. 2003ff), and as partially and highly automated, cooperatively interacting systems e.g. in the car domain (e.g. Stiller et al. 20019ff). Another paradigm is that of human machine symbiosis, in which two different species, here humans and machines, have a close and long term relationship, usually for the mutual benefit. This paradigm has been exploited e.g. for symbiotic driving schemes in the car domain (Abbink et al.2010ff). An extreme example of symbiosis that of a centaur, a creature from Greek mythology with a horse body and a human head. Applied to technology this metaphor is discussed for human-computer teams e.g. in chess competitions (e.g. Huffpost 2014) and in NATO for human-machine teaming (SCI 2020). Rider-horse and centaur stand for two different kinds of symbiotic relationships: A non-mandatory, reversible symbiosis like the rider and horse. Applied to humans and machines these are systems, where the humans can still do tasks without the support of the machines. A centaur is a non-reversable, mandatory symbiosis, where none of the symbionts can live and act without the other symbiont. The article will present that state of the art of cooperation, and of symbiotic human machine systems. It will structure and cluster symbiosis especially from a system and functions perspective, and make the differences visible with striking examples from the world of smart phones, automated cars and highly automated defense systems. Finally, the contribution will discuss what the desired kind of symbiotic relationship we as humans want and should strive for in intelligent human systems integration.