Autonomous Vehicles Set

This two-volume collection brings together Joseph Giacomin's recent books on autonomous road vehicles for professionals and students. Humans and Autonomous Vehicles provides an introduction to the Human Centred Design of autonomous vehicles. While rapid progress is being made in the field of autonomous road vehicles the majority of actions and the research address the technical challenges, with little attention to the physical, perceptual, cognitive and emotional needs of humans.

This book fills a gap in the knowledge by providing an easily understandable introduction to the needs and desires of people in relation to autonomous vehicles. The book is "human centred design" led, adding an important human perspective to the primarily technology-driven debates about autonomous vehicles. It combines knowledge from fields ranging from linguistics to electrical engineering to provide a holistic, multidisciplinary overview of the issues affecting the interactions between autonomous vehicles and people.

It emphasises the constraints and requirements that a human centred perspective necessitates, giving balanced information about the potential conflicts between technical and human factors. The book provides a helpful introduction to the field of design ethics, to enhance the reader’s awareness and understanding of the multiple ethical issues involved in autonomous vehicle design. Future Autonomous Road Vehicles provides a comprehensive overview of the past, present and future of autonomous road vehicles.

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. Both books have been written as accessible guides for design practitioners and students, and will be key reads for those interested in the psychological, sociological and ethical factors involved in automotive design, human centred design, industrial design and technology.