Shared Space Spaxels
Since 2013, the Ars Electronica Futurelab and Mercedes-Benz have been facing one of the most challenging issues raised by autonomous mobility: How can we humans communicate with self-driving cars in ways that make us feel comfortable and safe?
To approach this question, the Ars Electronica Futurelab set up two interactive proving grounds in which the so-called shared space, the zone that will be used by both human pedestrians and robotic motorists in the future, can be experienced by test subjects. The first of these haptic simulation setups, the Shared Space Spaxels, made its public debut in summer 2014 at the Mercedes-Benz Future Talk Robotics.