On the way towards full autonomy, sharing roads between automated vehicles and human actors in so-called mixed traffic is unavoidable. Moreover, even if all vehicles on the road were autonomous, pedestrians would still be crossing the streets. We propose social robots as moderators between autonomous vehicles and vulnerable road users (VRU). To this end, we identify four enablers requiring integration: (1) advanced perception, allowing the robot to see the environment; (2) vehicular communications allowing connected vehicles to share intentions and the robot to send guiding commands; (3) social human-robot interaction allowing the robot to effectively communicate with VRUs and drivers; (4) formal specification allowing the robot to understand traffic and plan accordingly. This paper presents an overview of the key enablers and report on a first proof-of-concept integration of the first three enablers envisioning a social robot advising pedestrians in scenarios with a cooperative automated e-bike.

翻译：在迈向完全自动驾驶的道路上，自动化车辆与人类交通参与者在所谓混合交通中共用道路是不可避免的。此外，即使道路上所有车辆都实现自动驾驶，行人仍将需要穿越街道。我们提出将社交机器人作为自动驾驶车辆与弱势道路使用者之间的协调中介。为此，我们确定了需要整合的四个关键使能技术：(1) 先进感知技术，使机器人能够感知环境；(2) 车联网通信技术，使联网车辆能够共享行驶意图，同时机器人可发送引导指令；(3) 社交人机交互技术，使机器人能够与弱势道路使用者及驾驶员进行有效沟通；(4) 形式化规约技术，使机器人能够理解交通规则并据此进行规划。本文概述了这些关键使能技术，并报告了前三种技术的首次概念验证集成方案——该方案设想在协同自动驾驶电动自行车场景中，由社交机器人向行人提供通行建议。