Are you a UNH junior looking for an exciting senior project? Are you interested in driving research, and/or eye tracking research? Would you like to work publish your work at a conference (three recent senior projects resulted in publications: pupil diameter, navigation, driver authentication)? Would you like to design new interaction techniques, such as this LED-based augmented reality navigation aid:

If so, here is a list of ideas for 2015 senior projects:

1. Collision warning systems. Collision warning systems issue auditory, visual, or multimodal warnings in the case of imminent collision. But, do drivers pay attention to these warnings? Do these systems reduce braking reaction time? These are some of the questions the senior project team will explore through driving simulator-based studies.
2. Intelligent agent controller for automated vehicle. Automated vehicles are of great interest to the automotive industry. The senior project team will develop an intelligent agent to control a simulated vehicle. In future work the intelligent agent will be used in exploring HCI issues related to automated driving.
3. Intelligent human-computer interaction that supports reengagement in driving. A central question in automated driving is: how will driver reengage in the driving task once the automation needs assistance? The senior project team will design strategies for alerting the driver, as well as methods to evaluate how fully the driver has reengaged in the driving task.
4. Using Apple Siri while driving. With the support of Apple engineers we are setting up Siri in our driving simulator. The senior project team will design experiments to assess the safety of interacting with Siri while driving.
5. Eye tracking for early detection of Alzheimer’s. Alzheimer’s disease is devastating. Early detection of the disease, and a subsequent early intervention, might improve the odds of successful treatment. The senior project team will explore the use of eye behavior and pupil diameter as measures for early detection.
6. Comparing Prezi and slides. Prezi presentations are exciting. The senior project team will explore what the strengths and weaknesses of this presentation style when compared to traditional slide presentations.
7. Your ideas. Do you have a senior project idea in the general areas of driving, and eye tracking? Let us know – send email to Andrew Kun.

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Here is a list of senior project ideas I would be very interested in working on. I’m looking for teams or individuals from the ECE and CS departments.

1. Augmented reality (AR) on the cheap. Work in our lab has shown that in-vehicle AR navigation aids can effectively guide drivers, that they do not distract, and that drivers like them [1] – see video below. However, they’re expensive to make. In this senior project students will build a device that will augment the speech output of a personal navigation device/app (e.g. Google Navigation) with LED displays indicating upcoming turns. The device will be tested in driving simulator experiments.

2. Instrumented steering wheel. Today’s vehicles have myriad buttons, many on the steering wheel [2]. This project will build on our work with a push-to-talk glove [3, 4] to explore how drivers could interact with in-vehicle devices by tapping the steering wheel. Additionally, sensors on the steering wheel will produce feedback about the driver’s state (e.g. a stressed driver might squeeze the steering wheel much harder than a relaxed driver). Multiple driving simulator experiments will validate the design of the instrumented steering wheel.
3. Video call. Work in our lab has shown that video calling can be a real distraction from driving [5] – see video below. This project will explore how different topics of conversation (e.g. playing word games vs. arguing), different relationships between conversants (e.g. friends vs. strangers), and different driving conditions (e.g. city vs. highway) influence driver’s ability to operate a simulated vehicle while video calling.
4. Tangible user interfaces that support exploring large, time-sequence data sets. The Environmental Response Management Application (ERMA) is a web-based data visualization application. It visualizes geo-coded time series, without requiring users to know how to access specialized databases, or overlay data from these databases on virtual maps. ERMA was developed at UNH, under the guidance of the Coastal Response Research Center (CRRC). Nancy Kinner is the co-director of the UNH Coastal Response Research Center. Building on Nancy’s experiences with ERMA, she and I are interested in exploring how a tangible user interfaces utilizing a multi-touch table could be used to access and manipulate geo-coded time series. In this project students will develop a user interface on a multi-touch table. The interface will allow a human operator to access remote databases, manipulate the data (e.g. by sending it to Matlab for processing) and display the results on a virtual map or a graph.
5. Tangible user interfaces for children. How can we entertain and teach kids using technologies such as the Microsoft Surface and tangible interfaces? Students working on this project would seek opportunities to collaborate with other researchers on the UNH campus to further explore this question.
6. Your ideas related to user interfaces in vehicles and on multi-touch tables. Do you have an idea you’d like to explore? Tell me more about it!

References

[1] Zeljko Medenica, Andrew L. Kun, Tim Paek, Oskar Palinko, “Augmented Reality vs. Street Views: A Driving Simulator Study Comparing Two Emerging Navigation Aids,” MobileHCI 2011

[2] Dagmar Kern, Albrecht Schmidt, “Design Space for Driver-based Automotive User Interfaces,” AutomotiveUI 2009

[3] Oskar Palinko, Andrew L. Kun, “Prototype Wireless Push-to-Talk Glove,” IET 2008

[4] Oskar Palinko, Andrew L. Kun, “Comparison of the Effects of Two Push-to-Talk Button Implementations on Driver Hand Position and Visual Attention,” Driving Assessment 2009

[5] Andrew L. Kun, Zeljko Medenica, “Video Call, or Not, that is the Question,” to appear in CHI ’12 Extended Abstracts