Autonomous vehicles have an existential communication challenge due to the lack of need for a human driver who can signal to vulnerable road users nearby about the intentions of the vehicle. This presents an opportunity for a vehicle to vulnerable road user communication system, such as for bicyclists.
Enabling communication between bicyclists and autonomous vehicles will lead to an improvement of the bicyclists' safety in autonomous driving. If a bicyclist wants to pass the autonomous vehicle, the autonomous vehicle should provide feedback to the human about what it is about to do and what it would like the person to do. The user study presented in this paper investigated several possible options for an external display for effective nonverbal communication between an autonomous vehicle and a bicyclist.
The results were compared to our recent study concerning vehicle-to-pedestrian communication. In total 208 participants were recruited for the vehicle-to-walker and vehicle-to-bicyclist feedback module studies.
The results did not show significant differences between the communication modalities presented. This paper shows and discusses differences between vehicle-to-walker and vehicle-to-bicyclist feedback modules. It is plausible to use the same combination of interaction modes, symbols and text, as for the vehicle-to-pedestrian communication feedback module due to economic reasons.
This study shows the necessity for more immersive environments to study vehicle to bicyclist communication needs in more detail.

Social Robots and the Production of Space: Exploring the Socio-Spatial Dimensions of Human-Robot Interaction, National Science Foundation PI: Casey Lynch, co-PI: David Feil-Seifer, Amount: $398,066, Aug. 15, 2021 - July 31, 2024

Research Initiation: Graduate Student Mental Health and Stress in Engineering, National Science Foundation (NSF) PI: David Feil-Seifer, co-PI: Adam Kirn, Amount: $200,000, Jan. 1, 2021 - Dec. 31, 2022