Aspects of the technology relate to assisting a passenger in an autonomous vehicle without a driver. For instance, after a door of the vehicle is opened, a predetermined period of time may be waited by processors of computing devices of the vehicle. After waiting the predetermined period of time and when the vehicle's door remains open, a set of instructions for closing the vehicle's door may be played by the processors through a speaker of the vehicle. Once the door of the vehicle is closed, an announcement may be played by the processors through the speaker requesting that the passenger press a first button to initiate a ride to a destination. In response to the first button being pressed, the ride to the destination may be initiated by the processors by maneuvering the vehicle autonomously to the destination.

A dialog confirmation unit in a vehicle communication device calculates the deceleration of a vehicle on the basis of vehicle speeds, when the vehicle speed at an operation start time and the vehicle speed at a time when a certain time has elapsed since the operation start time have been obtained by a vehicle information acquisition unit. Next, the dialog confirmation unit calculates a change in distance on the basis of distances when a distance information acquisition unit has obtained the distance between the vehicle and an object in front at the operation start time and the distance at the time when a certain time has elapsed since the operation start time. Next, the dialog confirmation unit selects a dialog that corresponds to the deceleration and the change in distance, from among a plurality of dialogs.

When a vehicle information acquisition unit continuously acquires an On signal of a blinker switch, when the absolute value of a steering angle of a handle is 90° or greater, and a vehicle speed is a threshold or greater, a dialogue confirmation unit of this vehicle communication device selects a dialogue that corresponds to the On signal, the steering angle, and the vehicle speed from dialogues of group A stored in a dialogue storage unit. Thereafter, when the steering angle or the vehicle speed changes, the dialogue confirmation unit selects the dialogue that corresponds to changes in the steering angle or the vehicle speed from among dialogues of group.

A rear display displays a driver image of a driver to a rear occupant. An operational information acquisition unit acquires operational information for changing a size of the driver image displayed on the rear display. An image control unit changes the size of the driver image displayed on the rear display, on the basis of the operational information acquired by the operational information acquisition unit. A sound control unit controls, at a time of generating a synthetic sound by combining a spoken voice of the driver with a reproduced sound of an AV source, a sound-level ratio between the spoken voice of the driver and the reproduced sound of the AV source, on the basis of the size of the driver image displayed on the rear display. A rear speaker outputs the synthetic sound generated by the sound control unit toward the rear occupant.

A driving assistance system includes a processor, a storage device, and an output device. The storage device retains traveling environment information indicating a traveling environment of a vehicle and driving characteristic information indicating driving characteristics of a driver of the vehicle. The processor generates a message corresponding to the traveling environment of the vehicle based on the traveling environment information, and generates a message corresponding to the driving characteristics of the driver of the vehicle based on the driving characteristic information. The output device outputs the message corresponding to the traveling environment and the message corresponding to the driving characteristics in different aspects.

An embodiment vehicle control system includes a display, a microphone configured to acquire a user's voice, a memory configured to store a dialog model related to a sign in a vehicle, and a processor configured to identify a question about the sign in the vehicle in the user's voice, determine a response corresponding to the question about the sign using the dialog model, and control the display to output the determined response.

A control method of an in-situ rotation mode of a four-wheel independent steering type vehicle includes, when the in-situ rotation mode of the vehicle is executed, a wheel rotation operation for rotating, by a controller, a wheel according to the in-situ rotation mode, when a steering wheel is steered, a target rotation angle calculation operation for calculating, by the controller, a target rotation angle of the vehicle based on a steering angle of the steering wheel, and when a step-in signal of an accelerator pedal is applied, a rotation control operation for controlling, by the controller, the vehicle to be rotated in-situ by as much as the target rotation angle.

When a vehicle information acquisition unit continuously acquires an On signal of a blinker switch, when the absolute value of a steering angle of a handle is 90° or greater, and a vehicle speed is a threshold or greater, a dialogue confirmation unit of this vehicle communication device selects a dialogue that corresponds to the On signal, the steering angle, and the vehicle speed from dialogues of group A stored in a dialogue storage unit. Thereafter, when the steering angle or the vehicle speed changes, the dialogue confirmation unit selects the dialogue that corresponds to changes in the steering angle or the vehicle speed from among dialogues of group.

Aspects of the technology relate to assisting a passenger in an autonomous vehicle without a driver. For instance, after a door of the vehicle is opened, a predetermined period of time may be waited by processors of computing devices of the vehicle. After waiting the predetermined period of time and when the vehicle's door remains open, a set of instructions for closing the vehicle's door may be played by the processors through a speaker of the vehicle. Once the door of the vehicle is closed, an announcement may be played by the processors through the speaker requesting that the passenger press a first button to initiate a ride to a destination. In response to the first button being pressed, the ride to the destination may be initiated by the processors by maneuvering the vehicle autonomously to the destination.

An electronic apparatus for an emergency control is provided. The electronic apparatus controls a human machine interface associated with a first vehicle to display a first user-selectable element. The electronic apparatus receives a first input, which corresponds to a first selection of the first user-selectable element. The first selection indicates a request to enable an emergency mode. The electronic apparatus activates a timer, which is associated with the electronic apparatus, for a pre-determined time period based on the first input. The electronic apparatus establishes a first communication with an emergency device associated with the first vehicle for the emergency mode, based on an expiration of the timer. The electronic apparatus deactivates a second user-selectable element on the human machine interface based on the first communication. The electronic apparatus receives one or more control instructions for the first vehicle from the emergency device based on the first communication.