<p>The objective of this thesis is to implement a basic, yet realistic, ESC system into the VTI simulator environment. This system is then validated to assure that it is working properly and provides a realistic behavior.</p><p>The implemented ESC system is used in a study, where the ESC system could be turned on and off, to evaluate the benefits of an ESC system after a side impact. This study shows that an ESC system may aid the driver in such a critical situation when the driver is unaware that a side impact will occur. With the ESC system active no driver lost control while with the system inactive there were five drivers that lost control, but deviations in initial speed give statistical difficulties, thus more tests are needed. In the case where the driver knows that an impact will occur the ESC system showed to stabilize the automobile faster and it is shown that an expected improvement in stabilization time is between 40 to 62 percent. It was also seen during this part of the scenario that 2 percent loss of control occurred with an active ESC system and 45 percent without.</p>

The objective of this thesis is to implement a basic, yet realistic, ESC system into the VTI simulator environment. This system is then validated to assure that it is working properly and provides a realistic behavior. The implemented ESC system is used in a study, where the ESC system could be turned on and off, to evaluate the benefits of an ESC system after a side impact. This study shows that an ESC system may aid the driver in such a critical situation when the driver is unaware that a side impact will occur. With the ESC system active no driver lost control while with the system inactive there were five drivers that lost control, but deviations in initial speed give statistical difficulties, thus more tests are needed. In the case where the driver knows that an impact will occur the ESC system showed to stabilize the automobile faster and it is shown that an expected improvement in stabilization time is between 40 to 62 percent. It was also seen during this part of the scenario that 2 percent loss of control occurred with an active ESC system and 45 percent without.

京都大学 / 新制・課程博士 / 博士(医学) / 甲第23084号 / 医博第4711号 / 新制||医||1049(附属図書館) / 京都大学大学院医学研究科医学専攻 / (主査)教授 木村 剛, 教授 森本 尚樹, 教授 山下 潤 / 学位規則第4条第1項該当 / Doctor of Medical Science / Kyoto University / DFAM

<p>The purpose of the project, which led to this thesis, was to investigate the possible effects different horizontal Fields of View (FoV) have on driving performance when driving at night with a Vision Enhancement System (VES). The FoV chosen to be examined were 12 degree and 24 degree FoV, both displayed on a screen with the horizontal size of 12 degree FoV. This meant that the different conditions of FoV also had different display ratios 1:1 and 1:2. No effort was made to separate these parameters. </p><p>A simulator study was performed at the simulator at IKP, Linköping University. Sixteen participants in a within-group design participated in the study. The participants drove two road sections; one with a 12 degree FoV and the other with a 24 degree FoV. During each section four scenarios were presented in which the participants passed one of three types of objects; a moose, a deer or a man. In each section, two of the objects stood right next to the road and two were standing seventeen meters to the right of the road. As the drivers approached the objects standing seventeen meters to the right of the road, the objects moved out of the VES when the vehicle was 200 meters in front of the object with a 12 degree FoV. The objects could be seen with the naked eye when the vehicle was 100 meters in front of the object. When the drivers approached the objects with a 24degree FoV the objects moved out of the VES display when it was possible to see them unaided. </p><p>Results show that a 24 degree FoV displayed with a 1:2 ratio gives the drivers improved anticipatory control, compared to a 12 degree FoV displayed with a 1:1 ratio. The participants with a broader FoV were able to make informed decisions whereas with a narrow FoV some participants started to reaccelerate when they could not see an object. Results also show that any difference in recognition distance that may exist between a 12 degree and a 24 degree camera angle displayed in a 12 degree FoV display do not seem to have any adverse effect on the quality of driving.</p>

The purpose of the project, which led to this thesis, was to investigate the possible effects different horizontal Fields of View (FoV) have on driving performance when driving at night with a Vision Enhancement System (VES). The FoV chosen to be examined were 12 degree and 24 degree FoV, both displayed on a screen with the horizontal size of 12 degree FoV. This meant that the different conditions of FoV also had different display ratios 1:1 and 1:2. No effort was made to separate these parameters. A simulator study was performed at the simulator at IKP, Linköping University. Sixteen participants in a within-group design participated in the study. The participants drove two road sections; one with a 12 degree FoV and the other with a 24 degree FoV. During each section four scenarios were presented in which the participants passed one of three types of objects; a moose, a deer or a man. In each section, two of the objects stood right next to the road and two were standing seventeen meters to the right of the road. As the drivers approached the objects standing seventeen meters to the right of the road, the objects moved out of the VES when the vehicle was 200 meters in front of the object with a 12 degree FoV. The objects could be seen with the naked eye when the vehicle was 100 meters in front of the object. When the drivers approached the objects with a 24degree FoV the objects moved out of the VES display when it was possible to see them unaided. Results show that a 24 degree FoV displayed with a 1:2 ratio gives the drivers improved anticipatory control, compared to a 12 degree FoV displayed with a 1:1 ratio. The participants with a broader FoV were able to make informed decisions whereas with a narrow FoV some participants started to reaccelerate when they could not see an object. Results also show that any difference in recognition distance that may exist between a 12 degree and a 24 degree camera angle displayed in a 12 degree FoV display do not seem to have any adverse effect on the quality of driving.

No description available.

No description available.

This simulator study aims to investigate if there is a relationship between self-awareness of driving ability and traffic safety behaviour. Self-awareness in this study is accurate self-evaluation of one’s abilities. By letting 97 participants (55-75 years old) drive the simulator and answering the Driver Skill Inventory (DSI; Warner et al., 2013) as well as the Multidimensional locus of control (T-loc; Özkan &amp; Lajunen, 2005). A measure of self-awareness was computed using the residuals from regression line. Furthermore, this measure could show if a participant over-estimated or under-estimated their ability. Four self-awareness measures were made. The self-awareness measures were compared to traffic safety behaviour. Three different traffic safety measures were computed using specific events in the simulator scenario. The self-awareness measures were grouped into three groups; under-estimators, good self-awareness and over-estimators. These groups were then compared to each other with respect to traffic safety. A multivariate ANOVA was made to test for differences between the self-awareness groups but no significant main difference was found. The results showed no difference in traffic safety behaviour given the different levels of self-awareness. Furthermore, this could be a result of the old age of the sample group as self-awareness may only be relevant in a learning context. The conclusion of the study is that the analysis shows that there is no difference between over-estimators and under-estimators of driving ability, at least not in experienced older drivers.

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.

As technology is becoming ever more present in the world, the use of simulators as a teaching tool is more prevalent than ever, with good evidence to back up their usefulness. Drivers’ education is one area among many that is seeing this change. These types of simulators are often classified by their level of fidelity, or how alike the simulator is to reality. However, fidelity is a far from precise term with many sub-categories that different researchers treat differently. This means, along with a lack of research, that the knowledge on how fidelity affects learning in simulations is diffuse. This study aimed to investigate how specifically changing the immersive feeling of a truck simulator affected the speed of learning to reverse with a virtual truck and trailer. More immersion was achieved by constructing a crude roof and walls on the simulator mimicking the inside of a vehicle. Results showed that there was no significant increase in the learning speed. However, there was a relatively near significant difference (p=0.148) between the groups, where more immersion was linked to faster learning. Participants also judged the simulator as being more useful in their learning if experiencing the immersive setup, which could be a potential cause of the near significant difference. Because of the low sample size of 23, no definitive conclusions could be drawn from this study. Taken together, it seems that a larger study stands a good chance of revealing the effect simulator fidelity can have on learning from a relatively simple change of immersion.