Research Projects

AITentive

Notifications and interruptions have become an integral part of our “multitasking” lives, although we all know they disturb our work patterns. Research has shown that interruptions negatively affect our productivity and wellbeing. In safety-critical settings, they can become a severe safety. To counter we have proposed to develop so-called “attentive user interfaces” that better time interruptions so that no negative side effects can occur. The project “AITentive” aims at solving this issue with the help of AI algorithms. Within the scope of the project, a system will be developed that can learn by itself when notifications and interruptions are most suitable so that safety and productivity can be increased. This system should work independently of particular humans, situations, or tasks/activities. Successful implementation of such an interface can potentially improve humans’ interactions with computerized systems. Ultimately, the “Attentive User Interface” developed within the scope of the project may be able to improve safety and productivity while maintaining human wellbeing in a wide range of scenarios.


Bicycle Safety

Cycling is a healthy and sustainable mode of transportation that is becoming increasingly popular. However, more and more cyclists are involved in severe or even fatal road crashes, as they could not benefit the same way as vehicle occupants from the safety gain in the last years. While traditional vehicles increasingly rely on active safety and driver assistance systems, the potential of technical assistance for cyclist safety is up to date, relatively unexploited. Consequently, we actively focus our research on the question of how well-known safety and assistance systems, such as anti-emergency braking or lane-keeping assist, can be transferred “to the bike lane”. However, the development of our so-called “Eternity Bike” is not only challenged by technical issues. Currently, it is unclear if potential users would accept and trust partly automated features on bicycles. The proposed explorative project aims at answering these questions. In particular, our consortium (consisting of TU Wien and the Austrian Institute of Technology) evaluates the potential of

semi-automated safety and comfort functions on bicycles from the perspective of future users.