Publication

Small electric Autonomous Delivery Vehicles (ADV) can play an important role in future logistic chains under the last mile deliveries. In terminals where ADV are loaded with goods it is important that the interactions between the ADVS and the goods handling personnel is safe. Two workshops with developers of self-driving vehicles, researchers in the area of human-machine interaction and goods handling personnel form Postnord were conducted to identify challenges, needs and requirements regarding the design of ADV and the terminals för ADV. Due to COVID19, the workshops were carried out online and a video was shown to the participants demonstrating an ADV operating in a location representing a terminal. The two main objectives for this study were to gain understanding of the interactions between the ADV and human operators in the terminal and to identify high-level functional requirements for safe and efficient deployment of ADVs in terminals. The identified use cases related to (i) the ADV’s operations in the terminal, from entering to leaving the terminal and (ii) use cases where human operators interacted with the ADV, e.g. for loading/unloading goods. For each use case a high-level functional requirement was formulated. Human operators will most likely have important roles in delivery chains with ADV, such as loading and unloading of goods, as well as managing problems the ADV cannot solve. Consequently, how to design the human - ADV interactions will be critical from safety and efficiency points of view.