Driving for Real or on a Fixed-Base Simulator: Is It so Different? An Explorative Study

2015 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 74-91 ◽  
Author(s):  
Isabelle Milleville-Pennel ◽  
Camilo Charron
Keyword(s):  
Virtual Environments ◽  
Real World ◽  
Mental Workload ◽  
Driving Simulators ◽  
The Road ◽  
Explorative Study ◽  
Fixed Base ◽  
Objective Value ◽  
Driving Conditions ◽  
Real Vehicle

The use of driving simulators to assess driving abilities is often controversial because of their artificiality. Our aim is thus to tackle this question by estimating and comparing new indicators such as the mental workload, the psychological feeling (e.g., stress, anxiety, pleasure, and mastery), and feeling of presence when driving a simulator and a real vehicle (either one's own or one that belongs to a driving school). We are most interested in a particular sort of real-world driving: the driving school. This situation has two advantages: It matches our own particular interest in the evaluation of driving abilities and, to some extent, it is as artificial as driving in a simulator. Fourteen expert drivers participated in this study. Each driver was invited to complete two questionnaires (i.e., the NASA-TLX and Questionnaire of Psychological Feeling) that relate to the various driving conditions (i.e., simulator, driving school vehicle, and personal vehicle). The heart rate of drivers was also recorded at rest and during some of the driving conditions. Our results indicate that the feeling of presence was, for some of its component parts, identical in both the simulator and in a real car. Moreover, in both the simulator and real car, none of the assessments of presence revealed values that were close to 100%; indeed, sometimes they were considerably lower. This result leads us to believe that presence may often be underestimated in virtual environments because of the lack of an objective value of reference in the real world. Moreover, results obtained for mental workload and affective feeling indicate that a simulator can be a useful tool for the initial resumption of driving after a period off the road. In particular, a simulator can help to avoid the sort of stress that can lead to task failure or a deterioration in performance.

scholarly journals Validity of Mental Workload Measures in a Driving Simulation Environment

2018 ◽  
Vol 2018 ◽  
pp. 1-11 ◽  
Author(s):  
Francesco Galante ◽  
Fabrizio Bracco ◽  
Carlo Chiorri ◽  
Luigi Pariota ◽  
Luigi Biggero ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Driving Simulator ◽  
Mental Workload ◽  
Critical Issue ◽  
Simulation Environment ◽  
Driving Simulators ◽  
The Road ◽  
Mixed Support ◽  
Vehicle Systems ◽  
Driving Task ◽  
On The Road

Automated in-vehicle systems and related human-machine interfaces can contribute to alleviating the workload of drivers. However, each new functionality can also introduce a new source of workload, due to the need to attend to new tasks and thus requires careful testing before being implemented in vehicles. Driving simulators have become a viable alternative to on-the-road tests, since they allow optimal experimental control and high safety. However, for each driving simulator to be a useful research tool, for each specific task an adequate correspondence must be established between the behavior in the simulator and the behavior on the road, namely, the simulator absolute and relative validity. In this study we investigated the validity of a driving-simulator-based experimental environment for research on mental workload measures by comparing behavioral and subjective measures of workload of the same large group of participants in a simulated and on-road driving task on the same route. Consistent with previous studies, mixed support was found for both types of validity, although results suggest that allowing more and/or longer familiarization sessions with the simulator may be needed to increase its validity. Simulator sickness also emerged as a critical issue for the generalizability of the results.

Real-World Physical Length Comparison in Virtual Environments

2007 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 19-24
Author(s):  
Chul Hee Jung ◽  
Min-Geun Lee ◽  
Chang Hyuck Im ◽  
이명원
Keyword(s):  
Virtual Environments ◽  
Real World ◽  
Physical Length

scholarly journals The Evaluation of Experimental Variables for Sustainable Virtual Road Safety Audits

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (11) ◽  
pp. 5899
Author(s):  
Yeonsoo Jun ◽  
Juneyoung Park ◽  
Chunho Yeom
Keyword(s):  
Road Safety ◽  
Traffic Light ◽  
Scenario Development ◽  
Driving Simulators ◽  
Traffic Condition ◽  
The Road ◽  
Road Pavement ◽  
Net Promoter ◽  
Road Safety Audits ◽  
Road Marking

This paper evaluates experimental variables for virtual road safety audits (VRSAs) through practical experiments to promote sustainable road safety. VRSAs perform road safety audits using driving simulators (DSs), and all objects in the road environment cannot be experimental variables because of realistic constraints. Therefore, the study evaluates the likelihood of recommendation of VRSA experimental variables by comparing DSs experiments and field reviews to secure sustainable road safety conditions. The net promoter score results evaluated “Tunnel”, “Bridge”, “Underpass”, “Footbridge”, “Traffic island”, “Sign”, “Lane”, “Road marking”, “Traffic light”, “Median barrier”, “Road furniture”, and “Traffic condition” as recommended variables. On the contrary, the “Road pavement”, “Drainage”, “Lighting”, “Vehicle”, “Pedestrian”, “Bicycle”, “Accident”, and “Hazard event” variables were not recommended. The study can be used for decision making in VRSA scenario development as an initial effort to evaluate its experimental variables.

scholarly journals Development of Driving Simulation Scenarios Based on Building Information Modeling (BIM) for Road Safety Analysis

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 2039
Author(s):  
Juan F. Dols ◽  
Jaime Molina ◽  
F. Javier Camacho-Torregrosa ◽  
David Llopis-Castelló ◽  
Alfredo García
Keyword(s):  
Road Safety ◽  
Data Exchange ◽  
Building Information Modeling ◽  
Cost Savings ◽  
Safety Analysis ◽  
Information Modeling ◽  
Driving Simulators ◽  
The Road ◽  
Road Design ◽  
Building Information

The analysis of road safety is critical in road design. Complying to guidelines is not enough to ensure the highest safety levels, so many of them encourage designers to virtually recreate and test their roads, benefitting from the evolution of driving simulators in recent years. However, an accurate recreation of the road and its environment represents a real bottleneck in the process. A very important limitation lies in the diversity of input data, from different sources and requiring specific adaptations for every single simulator. This paper aims at showing a framework for recreating faster virtual scenarios by using an Industry Foundation Classes (IFC)-based file. This methodology was compared to two other conventional methods for developing driving scenarios. The main outcome of this study has demonstrated that with a data exchange file in IFC format, virtual scenarios can be faster designed to carry out safety audits with driving simulators. As a result, the editing, programming, and processing times were substantially reduced using the proposed IFC exchange file format through a BIM (Building Information Modeling) model. This methodology facilitates cost-savings, execution, and optimization resources in road safety analysis.

scholarly journals An Adaptive Game-Based Learning Strategy for Children Road Safety Education and Practice in Virtual Space

Sensors ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (11) ◽  
pp. 3661
Author(s):  
Noman Khan ◽  
Khan Muhammad ◽  
Tanveer Hussain ◽  
Mansoor Nasir ◽  
Muhammad Munsif ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Real World ◽  
Road Safety ◽  
Learning Strategy ◽  
Real Life ◽  
Safety Training ◽  
Virtual Space ◽  
Safety Education ◽  
Average Output ◽  
Training Environment ◽  
The Road

Virtual reality (VR) has been widely used as a tool to assist people by letting them learn and simulate situations that are too dangerous and risky to practice in real life, and one of these is road safety training for children. Traditional video- and presentation-based road safety training has average output results as it lacks physical practice and the involvement of children during training, without any practical testing examination to check the learned abilities of a child before their exposure to real-world environments. Therefore, in this paper, we propose a 3D realistic open-ended VR and Kinect sensor-based training setup using the Unity game engine, wherein children are educated and involved in road safety exercises. The proposed system applies the concepts of VR in a game-like setting to let the children learn about traffic rules and practice them in their homes without any risk of being exposed to the outside environment. Thus, with our interactive and immersive training environment, we aim to minimize road accidents involving children and contribute to the generic domain of healthcare. Furthermore, the proposed framework evaluates the overall performance of the students in a virtual environment (VE) to develop their road-awareness skills. To ensure safety, the proposed system has an extra examination layer for children’s abilities evaluation, whereby a child is considered fit for real-world practice in cases where they fulfil certain criteria by achieving set scores. To show the robustness and stability of the proposed system, we conduct four types of subjective activities by involving a group of ten students with average grades in their classes. The experimental results show the positive effect of the proposed system in improving the road crossing behavior of the children.

Predictive Value of Assessing Vehicle Interior Design Ergonomics in a Virtual Environment

2004 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 109-113 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Reuding ◽  
Pamela Meil
Keyword(s):  
Virtual Environments ◽  
Interior Design ◽  
Real World ◽  
Predictive Value ◽  
Work Processes ◽  
Complex Activity ◽  
Vehicle Interior ◽  
Design Work ◽  
The Real ◽  
The Stability

The predictive value and the reliability of evaluations made in immersive projection environments are limited when compared to the real world. As in other applications of numerical simulations, the acceptance of such techniques does not only depend on the stability of the methods, but also on the quality and credibility of the results obtained. In this paper, we investigate the predictive value of virtual reality and virtual environments when used for engineering assessment tasks. We examine the ergonomics evaluation of a vehicle interior, which is a complex activity relying heavily on know-how gained from personal experience, and compare performance in a VE with performance in the real world. If one assumes that within complex engineering processes certain types of work will be performed by more or less the same personnel, one can infer that a fairly consistent base of experience-based knowledge exists. Under such premises and if evaluations are conducted as comparisons within the VE, we believe that the reliability of the assessments is suitable for conceptual design work. Despite a number of unanswered questions at this time we believe this study leads to a better understanding of what determines the reliability of results obtained in virtual environments, thus making it useful for optimizing virtual prototyping processes and better utilization of the potential of VR and VEs in company work processes.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document