  When pedestrians encounter vehicles, they typically stop and wait for a
signal from the driver to either cross or wait. What happens when the car is
autonomous and there isn't a human driver to signal them? This paper seeks to
address this issue with an intent communication system (ICS) that acts in place
of a human driver. This intent system has been developed to take into account
the psychology behind what pedestrians are familiar with and what they expect
from machines. The system integrates those expectations into the design of
physical systems and mathematical algorithms. The goal of the system is to
ensure that communication is simple, yet effective without leaving pedestrians
with a sense of distrust in autonomous vehicles. To validate the ICS, two types
of experiments have been run: field tests with an autonomous vehicle to
determine how humans actually interact with the ICS and simulations to account
for multiple potential behaviors.The results from both experiments show that
humans react positively and more predictably when the intent of the vehicle is
communicated compared to when the intent of the vehicle is unknown. In
particular, the results from the simulation specifically showed a 142 percent
difference between the pedestrian's trust in the vehicle's actions when the ICS
is enabled and the pedestrian has prior knowledge of the vehicle than when the
ICS is not enabled and the pedestrian having no prior knowledge of the vehicle.
