Evaluation of Mental Stress in Automated Following Driving

Automated driving and auxiliary driving functions are expected to improve safety and efficiency, and reduce the burden on drivers. These driving assist functions change the task of the driver not to control the vehicle but to monitor the driving operation, which could lead to new kind of stress. In this paper, the driver stress during automated follow-up driving is evaluated based on subjective evaluation and physiological measurement in a driving simulator environment. We confirmed that the subjective anxiety change due to acceleration / deceleration intensity varies depending on the inter-vehicle distance.