Combining Virtual Reality (VR) Technology with Physical Models – A New Way for Human-Vehicle Interaction Simulation and Usability Evaluation

Abstract

With the popularity of virtual reality technology, it has already been wide applied in the current automotive industry. However, most of these applications are aimed at the consumer market, and remain to provide the consumers with a method to have an overall experience of the vehicle visually. Based on the development of the automotive industry and the virtual reality technology, this study attempts to utilize the current popular virtual reality technology to solve the contradiction between the increasingly complex technologies applied in the automotive and the gradual shortening design and development cycle of the automotive due to market pressure. This study innovatively combines virtual reality technology and physical model, produces a virtual model in the virtual reality environment with the 1:1 size in real world, and uses the car seat, the steering wheel and the physical air-conditioning button model with 3D printing to produce the preliminary simulation test bench for human-vehicle interaction. After analyzing the completion time and the operational validity of the participants’ same interactive operations on the test bench and in the real car, the thesis preliminarily verifies the usability of the bench, and analyzes the advantages and disadvantages of it. The bench created by combining virtual reality technology and physical model can give the designers a better sense of immersion, and because of the addition of the physical model, the designers can evaluate their designs both visually and tactilely, with one more physical dimension. Besides, thanks to the advantages of virtual reality technology, the test bench of this study can achieve quick design update, provide the designers with more convenient solution comparison method, and can save a lot of time and money, which is a novel, concrete, and resource-saving design evaluation method with great application potentials.