Mistaken Pedal Pressing during Emergency Braking by Analyzing Pedal Behaviors

Abstract

Affective computing has been used to improve computer usability and user interface by considering user's emotion. There is still ample scope for exploration of affective computing especially for applications in a driver assistance system to recognize driver's emotions upon an emergency braking that has been extensively studied by several pieces of research. Pressing an accelerator mistakenly during an emergency braking is a serious case that leads to accidents especially in the case of an elderly driver or a beginner. This paper reviews briefly the affective computing, emergency braking, and mistaken pedal pressing, proposing a possible approach for improving the existing driving assistance system by analyzing driver's behavior of pedal pressing. The study is based on the idea that an emergency braking behavior should not mistakenly happen on the accelerator pedal, and we used evolutionary computing to investigate this idea. Results from our reviews and experiments showed that current affective computing technology might be insufficient to recognize a mistaken pedal pressing using facial expressions or similar emotions. However, we found that analyzing pedal pressing behaviors of a driver can recognize a mistaken pedal pressing during emergency braking. This can provide further alternative options to improve the safety of driving, especially for elderly and beginners, as we focus on the driver aspects.