During my first-year design project at TU/e, I worked with a team on improving the environment of a autonomous bus using lighting. Autonomous driving is a technology that is in development, but is already facing public scepticism. By reading related works, we discovered that a major challenge is public distrust in autonomous vehicles. This is caused by a lack of communication between the vehicle, it’s passengers and its surroundings. Unlike human drivers, AVs don’t make eye contact or give cues. This absence of feedforward creates uncertainty for both pedestrians and passengers.

Our goal was to bridge this communication gap. After several iterations of a external matrix information panel, we took a step back and realized that communication inside the AV was underexplored compared to outward communication. We discovered potential to contribute towards improving passenger comfort, and therefore we shifted our focus inward.

After a few iterations of a individual lighting cabin, we ended up with our final concept: LIGHTSIGHT. This was is a LED strip integrated in the dashboard that visualized what obstacles the bus was detecting. It used brightness and colour to convey this information to the passengers. This subtle feedback reassured passengers that the vehicle was aware of its surroundings, which reduced anxiety and built trust in AVs.

During this project, I was able to learn basics of digital visualization, physical prototyping and involving stakeholders into a project. It also sparked my interest in the use of lighting and working with novel technologies.