Researchers Develop In-Car Multiplayer Games for Future Fully-Autonomous Vehicles
Playing car-to-car games is the future, researchers say, and shouldn't impact a "driver's" ability to take over control of the vehicle.
Researchers at the Universities of Waterloo and Tokyo have been looking at autonomous vehicles from a new perspective, concentrating less on what the cars themselves do and more on what its occupants can do freed from the task of driving — and they suggest that will include in-car multiplayer augmented reality gaming.
Tech and transportation companies alike are developing autonomous vehicle technology, for varying reasons. For tech companies, it's a means to put increasing compute power into vehicles; for haulage and hire companies, a way to reduce staffing costs or increase running hours safely; those manufacturing vehicles for private use, meanwhile, use it as a differentiating feature with claims of boosted safety compared to a human driver.
Researchers at the Universities of Waterloo and Tokyo believe that self-driving cars are the future, and have turned their attention to finding ways that "drivers" freed from having to concentrate on the road could spend their newfound free time. Their answer: in-vehicle multiplayer augmented reality gaming.
"As autonomous vehicles start to replace conventional vehicles, occupants will have much more free time than they used to," claims Matthew Lakier, a PhD student in Waterloo's School of Computer Science. "You could use time spent in commute to read a book, watch a movie, get ahead on work, or browse the internet. Still, not everything you do has to be all isolated. You will be able to play games with other people in autonomous vehicles nearby when the car is driving itself. The games will be imposed on top of the actual world, so drivers won't have to take their eyes off the road."
To prove the point, the team developed three games which use head-up displays (HUDs) and vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communication. Using a virtual reality driving simulator, 12 participants were asked to play the games - with the occasional requirement to take control of the virtual vehicle away from the self-driving system, something that even the best self-driving vehicles will likely need for some time to come.
"Overall, the participants rated the games highly in immersion, there was a positive response to the incorporation of HUDs in the games, and the different game styles did not significantly impact the take-over task completion time. All games were popular for different reasons," explains Lakier. "People were happy to play with strangers. So, for example, they said they could form impromptu relationships with other people on the road."
The team's work was presented at the Annual Symposium on Computer-Human Interaction in Play 2019 (CHI PLAY '19), with more information available from the team's paper.