Development of a Virtual Proving Ground for Commercial Vehicle

Abstract

Virtual proving ground (VPG) are used effectively for commercial vehicle system development, human factor study, and other purposes by enabling to reproduce actual driving conditions in a safe and tightly controlled environment. This paper describes a virtual proving ground developed for design and evaluation of commercial vehicle and for driver-vehicle interaction study. VPG consists of a real-time vehicle simulation system, a visual and audio system, a driver handling signals acquisition system providing a realistic interface between the operator and the simulated environment, and 3D proving ground databases with areas suitable for various types of vehicle test tasks. The real-time vehicle simulation system simulates dynamic motion of realistic vehicle models in real-time. The visual system generates high fidelity driving scenes. The handling signals collection system acquires the steering, braking, accelerating, and shifting operation of driver. The pilot experiments carried out in the areas of vehicle handling and stability study are also presented to show the effectiveness of the developed VPG.