Abstract
ABSTRACT Most existing models of driver steering control do not consider the driver's sensory dynamics, despite many aspects of human sensory perception having been researched extensively. The authors recently reported the development of a driver model that incorporates sensory transfer functions, noise and delays. The present paper reports the experimental identification and validation of this model. An experiment was carried out with five test subjects in a driving simulator, aiming to replicate a real-world driving scenario with no motion scaling. The results of this experiment are used to identify parameter values for the driver model, and the model is found to describe the results of the experiment well. Predicted steering angles match the linear component of measured results with an average ‘variance accounted for’ of 98% using separate parameter sets for each trial, and 93% with a single fixed parameter set. The identified parameter values are compared with results from the literature and are found to be physically plausible, supporting the hypothesis that driver steering control can be predicted using models of human perception and control mechanisms.
Highlights
The computational tools available to automotive engineers allow vehicle dynamics to be predicted accurately, so that quantitative metrics for vehicle design can be defined
Increasing the number and demographic range of test subjects would increase confidence that the model could fit any driver from the population, but it is considered that the five subjects tested so far give sufficient confidence for further development of the model
Model predictions match experimental results from five test subjects well, with a ‘variance accounted for’ on average 98% of the upper bound on linear behaviour using separate parameter sets for each trial, and 93% of the upper bound with a single fixed parameter set
Summary
The computational tools available to automotive engineers allow vehicle dynamics to be predicted accurately, so that quantitative metrics for vehicle design can be defined. There is significant motivation for developing driver models which allow quantitative analysis and optimisation of the driver-vehicle system without relying on track testing and subjective driver feedback. The role of sensory dynamics during driving can be placed within the ‘two-level’ model proposed by Donges [3]. In this model a feedforward controller observes the road ahead, plans a trajectory for the vehicle and calculates the required steering inputs, while a feedback controller corrects for disturbances about this planned trajectory.
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