Autonomous vehicles can't make eye contact, so they use external human-machine interfaces (e.g. lights, sounds and displays) to communicate their intentions to pedestrians. Kerb is a toolkit for designing what these vehicles should do instead, communicating through light, sound and movement, and adapting to where they are and who is around them, from busy city crossings to regional and remote towns, and in different conditions, such as smoke and floods. The toolkit allows designers to conceptualise, physically prototype, and test every idea safely in virtual reality before it reaches a real road.
The toolkit is being built in parts. Each part collects its progress updates, sources and publications here as the project runs. This will involve gaining new knowledge through empirical work while also bringing together the collective knowledge of the research community.
Field studies of how Australian streets, conditions and communities change what an autonomous vehicle needs to say, from dense city crossings to remote highways in glare, smoke or flood.
A library of communication patterns for light bands, displays and projections, matched to the contexts and pedestrian groups they serve.
Tools for assembling and simulating context-aware eHMI concepts quickly, so a design can be tested in a day rather than a development cycle.
Methods for testing whether an eHMI is legible and trustworthy for the pedestrians it addresses, before vehicles reach the street.
Workshop proposal, "On the Edge of the Kerb: Designing Autonomous Vehicle-Pedestrian Communication for Australian Contexts and Communities", accepted at OzCHI 2026 in Adelaide, Australia.
Project website launched.
OzCHI 2026
Our full-day workshop, On the Edge of the Kerb: Designing Autonomous Vehicle-Pedestrian Communication for Australian Contexts and Communities, has been accepted at OzCHI 2026. Join us in Adelaide on Saturday 21 November 2026. Position papers are due 9 October 2026.
Call for papers and detailsWorkshop at AutoUI 2026
Public Mobile Robots (PMRs), including last-mile delivery, street-cleaning, and guide robots, are increasingly being deployed in shared public spaces such as sidewalks, corridors, and building entrances, where they must communicate and coordinate with nearby pedestrians. Unlike automated vehicles, PMRs operate in close proximity to people, introducing new challenges for intent communication, trust, and socially acceptable interaction. While the AutoUI community has established extensive knowledge on external Human-Machine Interfaces (eHMIs) for automated vehicles, it remains unclear how these principles transfer to PMRs. This workshop aims to examine the applicability of vehicle-based eHMI concepts to PMRs by identifying transferable design principles, challenges requiring adaptation, and new research directions. Through invited talks, comparative discussions, and scenario-based group activities, participants will develop a shared research agenda, propose preliminary design considerations for PMR eHMIs, and strengthen collaboration between the AutoUI and Human-Robot Interaction communities.
Details to followThe project has just begun, and its publications will be listed here as they appear, linked to the toolkit component they belong to. Earlier related work is on Google Scholar (opens in a new tab).
Callum Parker
Lead researcher, The University of Sydney