L’objectif principal de ce travail de thèse était d’étudier les mécanismes perceptivomoteurs qui sous-tendent la réalisation d’une tâche d’approche et de traversée d’intersection en conduite automobile. Dans la première partie de ce manuscrit les enjeux humains, économiques et sociétaux liés à la réussite d’une telle tâche sont évoqués. Les principaux résultats obtenus dans les études ayant porté sur l’identification des risques associés à la réalisation de ce type de manœuvre sont présentés. La plupart des travaux réalisés s’étant focalisés sur les processus de haut niveau (e.g., jugement d’un temps d’arrivée), nous avons souhaité durant cette thèse centrer notre attention sur les processus de bas-niveau mis en œuvre. Ce travail de thèse est adossé à l’approche Ecologique de la Perception et de l’Action qui nous a semblé proposer un cadre théorique pertinent pour étudier cette tâche complexe. La deuxième partie est consacrée aux expériences réalisées au cours de ce travail de thèse. Pour réaliser nos trois expériences, un simulateur de conduite à base fixe a été utilisé. Ce travail a permis (i) d’acquérir une meilleure compréhension du support perceptif impliqué dans la réalisation d’une tâche de traversée d’intersection et (ii) d’identifier différents marqueurs du couplage information-mouvement. Les résultats ont révélé que le support perceptif utilisé pour réaliser une tâche perceptive n’était pas le même que celui utilisé pour réaliser une tâche perceptivo-motrice. Les résultats ont également permis d’étayer la thèse selon laquelle le contrôle de la tâche d’approche et de traversée d’intersection reposerait sur un couplage information-mouvement. / This Ph.D. project aims at studying the perceptual-motor mechanisms implicated in intersection crossing task. The first part of this manuscript explains the human, economic and societal challenges associated with the successfully complete the intersection crossing task. The main results of the former studies that have examined the identification of risks associated with this type of maneuver at an intersection are developed. These former studies mainly focused on high-level processes (e.g., discrete judgment or decision tasks), we have decided to focus our attention on low-level processes (e.g., visual guidance) during this Ph.D. project. For this to happen, the Ecological Approach to Perception and Action seems to be a relevant theoretical framework for studying this complex task. Indeed, it preserves the natural link between information and movement. The second part of this manuscript is devoted to the experiments completed during this research. In order to carry out our three experiments, virtual reality fixed-base driving simulator was used. This work contributes to better understand the perceptual substrate involved in intersection crossing task. Also, this work identifies different markers of control based on information-movement coupling. Firstly, our results revealed that the perceptual substrate underlying judgments of arrival time of a vehicle moving towards an intersection is distinct from the perceptual substrate underlying the active control of one’s own approach to the same intersection. Secondly, the results have also strengthened the assumption that the control of approach and intersection crossing task is based on information-movement coupling.

Submitted by Juliana Cristina de Angelo (jul.angel@hotmail.com) on 2017-05-22T13:46:30Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Juliana Cristina de Angelo Repositorio.pdf: 20659453 bytes, checksum: 694ead497ef1e13185fc9690455644b5 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by LUIZA DE MENEZES ROMANETTO (luizamenezes@reitoria.unesp.br) on 2017-05-22T19:19:21Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 angelo_jc_me_bauru.pdf: 20659453 bytes, checksum: 694ead497ef1e13185fc9690455644b5 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-05-22T19:19:21Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 angelo_jc_me_bauru.pdf: 20659453 bytes, checksum: 694ead497ef1e13185fc9690455644b5 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2017-03-23 / O objetivo deste estudo foi avaliar os efeitos da aptidão física e da velocidade do veículo sobre a aquisição da informação visual de motoristas experientes durante a condução simulada de automóveis. Quinze participantes fisicamente ativos, com idade de 37,46 ± 4,34 anos, IMC de 22,7 ± 2,57 kg/m2 e experiência de condução de 17,93 ± 4,06 anos, e quinze participantes sedentários, com idade de 30,66 ± 6,90 anos, IMC de 22,8 ± 3,87 kg/m2 e experiência de condução de 10,20 ± 5,08 anos, foram submetidos a uma tarefa de condução simulada de automóvel, de duração de três minutos, nas condições de velocidade 50-60, 80-90 e 110-120 Km/h, enquanto tiveram seus movimentos dos olhos e da cabeça e sua frequência cardíaca gravados. As variáveis dependentes adotadas foram número de fixações, duração média das fixações e sua variabilidade, tempo relativo de fixação, variâncias das posições horizontal e vertical do olhar, variâncias das posições e orientações tridimensionais da cabeça. Estes dados foram submetidos a uma análise de variância de Grupo (ativo, sedentário) por Velocidade (50-60, 80-90, 110-120 Km/h) com medidas repetidas no segundo fator. O questionário Baecke apresentou no score de exercícios físicos para classificação de aptidão física uma média de M = 3.53 (DP = 0.74) e o grupo sedentário M = 2.26 (DP = 0.67). A frequência cardíaca resultou em uma média significativamente afetada pela condição experimental, F(3,0, 83,2) = 4,51, p = 0,006 e pelo grupo, F(1, 28) = 5,50, p = 0,026. A variabilidade da duração das fixações dos movimentos dos olhos foi significativamente afetada pela condição velocidade, F(1,5 43,2) = 3,79, p =0,041 e a variabilidade da duração das fixações na velocidade 80-90 Km/h (M = 0,34, EP = 0, 17) foi significativamente maior (p = 0,019) do que na velocidade 110-120 Km/h (M = 0,31, EP = O, 17). Em síntese: o nível de aptidão física afetou significativamente a frequência cardíaca durante a condução simulada de automóvel em distintas velocidades; bem como a velocidade do veículo afetou significativamente a frequência cardíaca. Participantes ativos e sedentários foram semelhantes na aquisição de informação visual durante a condução simulada de automóvel em diferentes velocidades. / The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effects of physical fitness and driving velocity on the experienced drivers' visual information acquisition during simulated car driving. Fifteen physically fit participants, with age of 37,46 ± 4,34 years, BMI of 22,7 ± 2,57 kg/m2, and driving experience of 17,93 ± 4,06 years, and fifteen sedentary participants with age of 30,66 ± 6,90 years, BMI of 22,8 ± 3,87 kg/m2, and driving experience of 10,20 ± 5,08 years, were submitted to a simulated car driving task of 3-min duration, under the velocity conditions of 50-60, 80-90, and 110-120 Km/h, while had their gaze and head movements, and heart frequency recorded. The dependent variables adopted were number of fixations, mean fixation duration and its variability, relative fixation time, variances of horizontal and vertical gaze position, variances of tridimensional head position and orientation. These data were submitted to a Group (fit, sedentary) by driving velocity (50-60, 80-90, 110-120 Km/h) analysis of variance. The Baecke questionnaire presented a mean of M = 3.53 (SD = 0.74) and the sedentary group M = 2.26 (SD = 0.67) in the physical fitness score for physical fitness classification. The heart rate resulted in a mean significantly affected by the experimental condition, F (3.0, 83.2) = 4.51, p = 0.006 and by the group, F (1.28) = 5.50, p = 0.026. The variability of the fixation duration of the eye movements was significantly affected by the velocity condition, F (1.5 43.2) = 3.79, p = 0.041 and the variability of the fixation duration at the velocity 80-90 Km / h ( M = 0.34, SD = 0.17) was significantly higher (p = 0.019) than at the speed 110-120 km /h (M = 0.31, SD = 0.17). ln summary: the level of physical fitness significantly affected the heart rate during simulated car driving at different speeds; vehicle speed significantly affected heart rate. Active and sedentary participants were similar in acquiring visual information during simulated car driving at different speeds.

Driving under distraction may lead drivers to wrong actions that can result in serious accidents. The objective of this thesis was to apply a driving simulator to verify variations in drivers\' behavior while driving. Behavior to drive on a curve was measured by variation in drivers\' speed profile in a virtualized highway. The comparison was performed between two identical simulations, one involving drivers distracted with a mental workload, and other in which they were full aware of driving task. 54 volunteer drivers took part in this study, which was divided into 4 stages. 17 drivers performed the distraction test known as PASAT, and results showed that distracted drivers did not recognize the beginning of the curve and drove through it at speeds higher than those when they were fully aware. Moreover, driving performance was increased when drivers were aware of driving, thereby hitting high speeds in tangents, but perceiving curves in advance to reduce acceleration. This study confirms that driving simulators are beneficial in discovering drivers\' behavior exposed to activities that could be highly risky if driving in real situations. / A distração durante a atividade de direção pode levar o condutor de veículos automotores a cometer falhas, que podem ocasionar até mesmo acidentes graves. Este estudo aborda a utilização de simuladores de direção para verificar variações no comportamento de motoristas ao realizar a atividade de direção, distraídos ou com plena atenção na condução do veículo. O comportamento é medido pela variação no perfil de velocidade dos condutores para desenvolver uma curva considerada perigosa em uma rodovia simulada em ambiente virtual. A variação de velocidade deste perfil é comparada entre duas simulações idênticas, onde em uma delas os condutores estão distraídos com um teste que proporciona estresse mental e, na outra, estão com plena atenção à direção. 54 condutores fizeram parte deste estudo dividido em 3 etapas. 17 participantes realizaram o teste de distração conhecido como PASAT, e a análise dos resultados mostram que, distraídos, os condutores não perceberam o início da curva e desenvolveram velocidades maiores durante seu trajeto. Além disso, quando estavam com plena atenção à atividade de direção, o desempenho dos condutores foi melhor, atingindo velocidades maiores nas tangentes, mas percebendo as curvas antecipadamente e reduzindo suas velocidades antes de iniciar esses trechos.

By means of car2x communication technologies (car2x) driver warnings can be presented to drivers quite early. However, due to their early timing they could be misunderstood by drivers, distract or even disturb them. These problems arise if, at the moment of the warning, the safety–critical situation is not yet perceivable or critical. In order to examine, when drivers want to receive early warnings as a function of the situation criticality, a driving simulator study was conducted using the two early warning stages of a multi stage collision warning system (first stage: informing the driver; second stage: prewarning the driver). The optimum timing to activate these two early warning stages was derived by examining the drivers’ evaluation of these timings concerning their appropriateness and usefulness. As situational variation, drivers traveling at about 100 km/h were confronted with slow moving traffic either driving at 25 km/h or 50 km/h at the end of a rural road. In total, 24 participants were tested in a within-subjects design (12 female, 12 male; M = 26.6 years, SD = 7.2 years). For both stages, drivers preferred an earlier timing when approaching slow moving traffic traveling at 25 km/h (first stage: 447 m, second stage: 249 m ahead of the lead vehicle) compared to 50 km/h (first stage: 338 m, second stage: 186 m ahead of the lead vehicle). The drivers’ usefulness rating also varied with the timing, spanning a range of 8 s for driver-accepted timing variations and showed correspondence to the drivers’ appropriateness ratings. Based on these results and those of a previous study, a timing function for each of the two early warning stages depending on the speed difference between the safety–critical object and the host vehicle is presented. Indirectly, similar adaptations are already implemented in current collision warning systems, which use the time-to-collision to give drivers acute warnings in a later stage, when an immediate reaction of the driver may still prevent a collision. However, this study showed that drivers also favor this kind of adaptation for earlier warning stages (information and prewarning). Thus, adapting the timing according to the drivers’ preferences will contribute to a better acceptance of these collision warning systems.

Driving comfort is considered a key factor for broad public acceptance of automated driving. Based on continuous driver/passenger monitoring, potential discomfort could be avoided by adapting automation features such as the driving style. The EU-project MEDIATOR (mediatorproject.eu) aims at developing a mediating system in automated vehicles by constantly evaluating the performance of driver and automation. As facial expressions could be an indicator of discomfort, a driving simulator study has been carried out to investigate this relationship. A total of 41 participants experienced three potentially uncomfortable automated approach situations to a truck driving ahead. The face video of four cameras was analyzed with the Visage facial feature detection and face analysis software, extracting 23 Action Units (AUs). Situation-specific effects showed that the eyes were kept open and eye blinks were reduced (AU43). Inner brows (AU1) as well as upper lids (AU5) raised, indicating surprise. Lips were pressed (AU24) and stretched (AU20) as sign for tension. Overall, facial expression analysis could contribute to detect discomfort in automated driving.

Les constructeurs automobiles sont tenus de respecter des minima sécuritaires vérifiés lors de crash-tests normalisés, d'où un nombre de scénarios de tests limité ne tenant pas compte des particularités individuelles. Ce mémoire propose d'évaluer le comportement humain réel en phase de pré-crash sur simulateur de conduite. L'expérimentation, intégrant un scénario d'accident difficilement évitable, a permis d'étudier le comportement de 76 conducteurs dont 40 sur simulateur dynamique. Pour ce groupe, 43 voies de mesures centrées sur le conducteur ont été intégrées au protocole. Parmi les résultats obtenus, on retiendra la possible détection précoce de l'accident, pour la moitié des conducteurs, sur la base de leur interaction avec le véhicule. Les manœuvres d’évitement amènent 25% des sujets à positionner l'avant-bras devant le volant au moment de l’impact. Cette situation peut compromettre l'efficacité des airbags, ce qui est vérifié sur banc statique, par le déploiement d'airbags face à un mannequin de type Hybrid III-50%. La projection du bras entraine un impact de 120g à la tête. De plus, l'intégration de membres supérieurs issus de SHPM montre que la situation provoque des fractures de l'avant-bras. Un modèle numérique a été conçu pour estimer les effets de la position atypique lors d'un crash frontal à 50km/h. L'accélération de la tête atteint 270g, synonyme de risques lésionnels élevés. Enfin, une modification technologique des airbags est proposée, basée sur l'hypothèse que la détection à distance peut permettre un déclenchement anticipé et plus lent des airbags. Testée expérimentalement et numériquement, cette évolution permet de respecter les critères lésionnels. / Automakers are lawfully required to achieve a minimum level of security which is checked during standardized crash tests. This results in a limited number of scenarios, which do not take individual specificities into account. This dissertation evaluates real human behaviour during the pre-crash phase, by means of a driving simulator. The experiment, integrating an unavoidable accident, studied the behaviour of 76 drivers, of which 40 drivers on a dynamic simulator. Concerning this group, 43 acquisition channels dedicated to drivers were added. From the results, one can retain that the crash can be predicted for half of the drivers through the observation of their behaviour and their interaction with the car. Due to swerving manoeuvres, 25% of the drivers have their forearm just in front of the steering wheel at the time of crash. This situation may compromise the efficiency of the airbags, that is verified experimentally on a static bench, by the deployment of airbags in front of a Hybrid III-50% dummy. The throwing of the arm causes an impact of 120 g to the head. In a second stage, the integration of left upper limbs from PMHS reveals that the situation is likely to generate fractures in the forearm. A numerical model has been designed to estimate the consequences of the atypical position during a frontal crash at 50km/h. The head acceleration reaches 270 g, synonymous with high lesion risks. Finally, a technological modification of the airbags is proposed to reduce this risk. The assumption is made that the use of remote sensors technologies can allow an early detection of the crash and therefore slower triggering of airbags. Tested experimentally and then numerically, this technical evolution reduces the violence of the impact to respect the injury criteria.

Wheeled Mobile Driving Simulators (WMDS) promise a high potential for urban traffic simulation. The tires generate the accelerations of WMDS and therefore are a key component of this simulator type. Hence, the choice of a proper tire concept is of high importance. Solid tires with compact dimensions and a high vertical stiffness are a possible alternative approach to conventional pneumatic tires. To assess the application potential of solid tires their characteristics are identified. The results show that high slip values and slip angles are necessary to reach the maximum friction coefficient of about 0.8 while their correlation is highly nonlinear. With the identified tire properties, the impact of the tires on energy consumption and motion control performance of WMDS is investigated. The solid tires show an increased energy consumption of about 4% compared to pneumatic tires in representative urban driving cycle simulations. Solid tires with their nonlinear characteristics lead to five times higher lateral acceleration errors in relation to pneumatic tires at accelerations of 5 m/s2 during a horizontal eight maneuver. The vertical properties of both tires were identified to be not sufficient for the application of a WMDS solely sprung by tires on uneven grounds of common quality.

The transportation industry has been transforming because of rapid digitalization and autonomy. Because of this the demand for more connected and autonomous vehicles is increasing for both private individuals and businesses. Reducing human interaction emphasizes the need for higher road safety. Autonomous vehicles, in general, have different sources of faults which might lead to severe accidents and injuries. Testing and validating autonomous vehicles can be useful for avoiding such cases. Remote driving is a potential fallback option whenever autonomous vehicles fail. The remote operator can take direct or indirect control of the remotely-operated vehicle whenever the need arises. Tele-operated driving has three main parts - the vehicle, the remote operator, and communication between the two. Communication plays an important role in this feedback control system. Any communication disturbance in the video feed from the vehicle to the remote operator or in the commands from the operator to the vehicle can result in safety violations and even accidents. These disturbances can have different sources. This work presents a methodology to inject network disturbances to analyze the effect of these disturbances on vehicle manoeuvrability. A driving simulator, CARLA, was used as a vehicle model to solve this problem and to allow human-in-the-loop. NETEM was used to inject different faults on the outgoing traffic to emulate network disturbances. The implementation was done on LocalHost to avoid any delays that might occur due to the presence of physical devices in the network. It was concluded from the Time-to-Collision (TTC) results that road safety decreased whenever the fault was injected in a vehicle-following case. Another important insight was that the packet loss of 5% always showed a TTC violation for a 6-sec threshold. The highest steering reversal rate was also observed for 5% packet loss. It was observed from the results that the steering reversal rate (SRR) was consistently higher in the faulty run. This indicates that the drivers were more distracted. Based on the results, it is observed that network disturbances affected driving in a remote driving setup. The results can be further utilized for more comprehensive studies to understand how simulator-in-loop can be used for testing, verification, and validation. / Transportbranschen har förändrats på grund av snabb digitalisering och autonomi. Efterfrågan på mer uppkopplade och autonoma fordon ökar hos både privatpersoner och företag. Men minskad användarinteraktion ökar behovet av högre säkerhet hos fordonen. Autonoma fordon har i allmänhet olika felkällor som kan leda till allvarliga olyckor och skador. Att testa och validera autonoma fordon blir viktigt för att undvika sådana fall. Fjärrkörning är ett potentiellt komplement när autonoma fordon inte är tillräckligt säkra. Fjärroperatören kan ta direkt eller indirekt kontroll över det fjärrmanövrerade fordonet när behovet uppstår. Telestyrd körning har tre huvudkomponenter - fordonet, fjärroperatören och kommunikationen däremellan. Kommunikation spelar en viktig roll i detta återkopplade system. Varje störning i kommunikationen av videoflödet från fordonet till fjärroperatören eller i kommandon från operatören till fordonet kan resultera i bristande säkerhet och till och med olyckor. Dessa störningar kan ha olika källor. Detta arbete presenterar en metod för att injicera nätverksstörningar för att kunna analysera effekten av dessa på fordonets manövrerbarhet. En körsimulator, CARLA, användes som fordonsmodell och anpassades för att kunna styras av en mänsklig fjärroperatör. NETEM användes för att injicera olika fel på den utgående nätverkstrafiken för att efterlikna nätverksstörningar. Implementeringen gjordes på LocalHost för att undvika fördröjningar som kan uppstå på grund av närvaron av andra fysiska enheter i nätverket. Av TTC-resultaten drogs slutsatsen att trafiksäkerheten minskade när fel injicerades i ett fall där fjärroperatören följer att annat fordon. En annan viktig insikt var att en paketförlust på 5% alltid gav överträdelser med för låg TTC vid en gräns för lägsta tillåtna värde på 6 sekunder. Även de högsta observerade värdena på styrvändningstakt (steering reversal rate) observerades för 5% paketförlust. Resultaten visade att styrvändningstakten konsekvent var högre vid felinjicering. Detta tyder på att förarna var mer distraherade. Baserat på resultaten är en observeration att nätverksstörningar kan påverka säkerheten vid fjärroperation. Metodiken kan användas för mer omfattande studier för att förstå hur simulator-i-loopen kan användas för testning, verifiering och validering.

<p>  </p> <p>Driving simulators have been introduced by some American states’ department of transportation (DOT) as a supplementary tool to train their snowplow drivers. This is a costly investment that requires careful planning. Yet, there is a current lack of recent studies that holistically evaluate factors affecting the decision-making process on adopting the driving simulator in winter snowplow driver training. The current research aims to fill this gap by employing the theoretical framework of Technology-Organization-Environment (T-O-E) to explore factors affecting state DOTs’ decision-making process of adopting snowplow driving simulator in driver training. Relevant factors were identified first using a scoping review of literature, and then validated by interviews with DOT stakeholders. Subsequent findings from the state DOT survey suggests that perceived long-term effect on public safety, cost related to simulator training, and ease of the relocation of simulator are the top contributors when it comes to the factors affecting decision-making on adoption of snowplow driving simulator in training. The resulted T-O-E framework contains 11 factors cross-verified from various sources, in which most factors such as simulator fidelity and relative advantage were categorized to technology context under the T-O-E framework, while the main environment factor relates to normative and mimetic pressure. The paper contributes to academic research by applying T-O-E to offer decision making support for using simulator technology for training of snowplow drivers; and to practitioners by providing state DOT decision makers a framework to analyze different factors on adopting snowplow driving simulators in training.</p>

Driving sleepiness is a serious problem worldwide. It is of interest to develop reliable sleepiness detection systems to implement in vehicles, and for such a system both physi-ological data and driver performance data can be used. The reasons for driver sleepiness can be many, where an interesting factor to consider is the light condition of the environment, specifically daylight and darkness. Daylight and darkness has shown to affect human sleepiness in general and it is therefore of importance to investigate the effect of it on driver sleepiness independent of other factors. This thesis aimed to investigate whether light condition is a parameter that should be considered when developing a sleepiness detection system in a vehicle. This was done by investigating if the course of sleepiness would be affected by daylight and darkness, and if adding light condition information as a parameter to a classification model improved the performance of the sleepiness classification. To achieve this, the study was based upon data collected from driving simulator tests conducted by the Swedish National Road and Transport Research Institute (VTI). Test subjects drove in simulated daylight and darkness during both daytime while rested and nighttime while sleep-deprived. An exploratory and statistical analysis was conducted of several sleepiness indicators extracted from physio-logical data and simulator data. Three different classification models were implemented. The indicators pointed to a higher level of driver sleepiness during night compared to during day, as well as an increase with time on task. However, no clear trends pointed to daylight and darkness having affected the sleepiness of the driver. The classification models showed a marginal improvement when including light condition as a feature, however not large enough to draw any specific conclusion regarding the effect. The conclusion was that an effect of daylight and darkness on the course of driver sleepiness could not be seen in this thesis. The adding of light and dark as a feature did not significantly improve the classification models’ performances. In summary, further investigations of the effect of daylight and darkness in relation to driver sleepiness are needed.