Future Autonomous Road Vehicles

This book provides a comprehensive overview of the past, present and future of autonomous road vehicles for professionals and students.

Split into three parts, the first section of the book brings together the key historical developments in autonomous road vehicle design and the primary explorations of the design possibilities from science fiction. This historical analysis draws upon significant test vehicles from history and explores their roles as landmarks in the evolution of the field. In addition, it also reviews the history of science fiction and outlines the key speculations about autonomous road vehicles which emerged from that world. In the second section of the book, Joseph Giacomin introduces five of the most popular future-facing speculative approaches used by designers. In doing so, he identifies the major user-facing challenges which affect ideation, product design, service design and business modelling. In the final part, science fiction prototyping is identified as the speculative approach best suited to autonomous road vehicle application. Connecting theory with practice, Giacomin provides examples of sixteen science fiction prototypes, which cover a comprehensive range of physical, psychological, sociological and ethical design challenges.

Written as an accessible guide for design practitioners and students, this book will be of use to those interested in the psychological, sociological and ethical factors involved in automotive design, human-centred design, industrial design and technology.

Joseph Giacomin is a professor of Human Centred Design at Brunel University, London, UK, where he performs research leading to products, systems and services which are physically, perceptually, cognitively and emotionally intuitive. He has worked for both the American military and the European automobile industry. He has produced more than 120 publications including the books Automotive Human Centred Design Methods, Thermal - Seeing the World Through 21st Century Eyes, and, most recently, Humans and Autonomous Vehicles. He has been a member of the editorial boards of Ergonomics and the International Journal of Vehicle Noise and Vibration (IJVNV). He is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Ergonomics and Human Factors (CIEHF), a Fellow of the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA), a member of the Associazione Per Il Disegno Industriale (ADI) and a member of the Royal Photographic Society (RPS).