A Conceptual Control System Description of Cooperative and Automated Driving in Mixed Urban Traffic With Meaningful Human Control for Design and Evaluation

The introduction of automated vehicles means that some or all operational control over these vehicles is diverted away from a human driver to a technological system. The concept of Meaningful Human Control (MHC) was derived to address control issues over automated systems, allowing a system to explicitly consider human intentions and reasons. Applying MHC to technological systems, such as automated driving is a real challenge, and the main focus of this article. An approach with mathematical elaboration has been developed that offers a first quantifiable operationalisation of MHC for the traffic domain and for use with automated vehicles. A major contribution lies in the taxonomification of control for MHC in the broader traffic environment, including consideration of the driver, the vehicle, the traffic environment, considering behaviour, moral standards and societal values, which are considered in a case study. The demonstration case shows the validity of the developed approach for an automated vehicle overtaking a cyclist on an urban street. This article is one of the first to operationalise MHC to such a level of detail and opens the door to further development of the concept for technological implementation.