Communication between Autonomous Vehicles and Pedestrians: An Experimental Study Using Virtual Reality.

One of the major challenges of autonomous vehicles (AV) is their interaction with pedestrians. Unofficial interactions such as gestures, eye contact, waving, and flashing lights are very common behavioral patterns for drivers to express their intent to give priority. In our research we composed a virtual reality experiment for a pedestrian crossing in an urban environment in order to test pedestrians' reactions on an LED light display mounted on a virtual AV.