Article

This paper studies strategies for collision avoidance between two persons walking
along crossing trajectories. It has been previously demonstrated that walkers are
able to anticipate the risk of future collision and to react accordingly. The
avoidance task has been described as a mutual control of the future distance of
closest approach, MPD (i.e., Mininum Predicted Distance). In this paper, we
studied the role of each walker in the task of controlling MPD. A specific
question was: does the walker giving way (2nd at the crossing) and the one
passing first set similar and coordinated strategies? To answer this question, we
inspected the effect of motion adaptations on the future distance of closest
approach. This analysis is relevant in the case of collision avoidance because
subtle anticipatory behaviors or large last moment adaptations can finally yield
the same result upon the final crossing distance. Results showed that collision
avoidance is performed collaboratively and the crossing order impacts both the
contribution and the strategies used: the participant giving way contributes more
than the one passing first to avoid the collision. Both walkers reorient their
path but the participant giving way also adapts his speed. Future work is planned
to investigate the influence of crossing angle and TTC on adaptations as well as
new types of interactions, such as intercepting or meeting tasks.
CI - Copyright (c) 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Langue : ANGLAIS