Bicycle Simulator Research Articles

Design and hardware selection for a bicycle simulator

Abstract. With the resurgence in bicycle ridership in the last decade and the continuous increase of electric bicycles in the streets a better understanding of bicycle rider behaviour is imperative to improve bicycle safety. Unfortunately, these studies are dangerous for the rider, given that the bicycle is a laterally unstable vehicle and most of the time in need for rider balance control. Moreover, the bicycle rider is very vulnerable and not easily protected against impact injuries. A bicycle simulator, on which the rider can balance and manoeuvre a bicycle within a simulated environment and interact with other simulated road users, would solve most of these issues. In this paper, we present a description of a recently build bicycle simulator at TU Delft, were mechanical and mechatronics aspects are discussed in detail.

Fundamental study on fatigue measurement in VDT work from speech analysis

AbstractWe aimed at developing a simple fatigue measurement system, so far the influence of the noise is small under laboratory environment and the experimenter side who uses a simulator. We have been studying fatigue measurement in a manageable environment. In order to show the effectiveness of our proposed method in a real environment, we collected fatigue measurement indexes before and after work for technical engineers of Software Development Company operating visual display terminals (VDT) work, changes before and after were compared and examined. As a result, in the conventional indexes, a significant difference was found in the pulse rate and the flicker value. We found that there are significant differences between before and after some speech of fundamental frequency, speech power, and period of speech indexes. In VDT work, there was a difference in flicker value as a fatigue measurement index, which was also supported by subjective symptoms and self‐evaluation results. In addition, since significant differences were also found in the speech index, in the work centering on the VDT work as well as the bicycle simulator so far, it was shown that speech indexes can be effective indicators.

Revealed Preference Methods for Studying Bicycle Route Choice-A Systematic Review.

One fundamental aspect of promoting utilitarian bicycle use involves making modifications to the built environment to improve the safety, efficiency and enjoyability of cycling. Revealed preference data on bicycle route choice can assist greatly in understanding the actual behaviour of a highly heterogeneous group of users, which in turn assists the prioritisation of infrastructure or other built environment initiatives. This systematic review seeks to compare the relative strengths and weaknesses of the empirical approaches for evaluating whole journey route choices of bicyclists. Two electronic databases were systematically searched for a selection of keywords pertaining to bicycle and route choice. In total seven families of methods are identified: GPS devices, smartphone applications, crowdsourcing, participant-recalled routes, accompanied journeys, egocentric cameras and virtual reality. The study illustrates a trade-off in the quality of data obtainable and the average number of participants. Future additional methods could include dockless bikeshare, multiple camera solutions using computer vision and immersive bicycle simulator environments.

Hardware Design for an Electro-Mechanical Bicycle Simulator in an Immersive Virtual Reality Environment

Roughly 50,000 people are injured in bicycle collisions with motor vehicles each year. The Hank Bicycle Simulator provides a virtual environment to study and reduce this risk by safely investigating the interaction of bicycle riders and traffic, particularly for bicyclists crossing streets. The bicycle simulator design focuses on the bicycle and rider inertia, the predominant dynamic element for riders moving from a stopped position. The Hank Bicycle Simulator's flywheel provides instantaneous inertial response while a servomotor provides simulated wind resistance to pedaling. This work describes the simulator design and a validation experiment that compares the simulator performance to theoretical predictions. The Hank Bicycle Simulator achieved initial acceleration with less than 0.20% error at realistic rider weights. The observed terminal velocity achieved less than 3.75%, with smaller errors for heavier riders. This allowed the rider to cross a street with about a 60 ms time difference between the simulator and a real-life rider. The Hank Bicycle Simulator was also validated through various physical experiments measuring the system inertia, the time delay of the electrical components, and overall system performance. Such careful system validation for a mechanical feedback system is relatively rare in simulation research and is unique among previous reports of bicycle simulators.

Design and Construction of a Virtual Bicycle Simulator for Evaluating Sustainable Facilities Design

The rising interest in sustainable modes of transportation has increased demand for the design and implementation of bicycle facilities in the United States. However, as compared to the vehicular mode, bicycle facilities have relatively less development, research, and understanding. The availability of a bicycling simulator has the potential to contribute to the understanding of bicycle facility design and bicyclist behavior. The design and construction of a bicycling simulator differs from a driving simulator in many ways. A bicycling simulator requires interfaces for bicycle speed, braking, and steering angle as well as a visual interface. In addition, a representation of a real-world network, including pavement, buildings, the sky and background, and fixed and moving objects, needs to be modeled using a simulator engine. This paper presents the details of the ZouSim bicycling simulator development and the tradeoffs associated with various design decisions, such as the choice of a steering sensor and graphical display. A sample application of a wayfinding and detection markings study illustrates the use of ZouSim. The authors hope that this article will encourage other researchers who conduct research in sustainable cities to explore the use of bicycle simulators for improving bicycle facility design and operations.

Validation of a bicycle simulator for road safety research

The study’s aim was to assess the behavioural validity of participants using of a newly developed bicycle simulator with respect to a range of cycling performance measures collected both using the cycling simulator and on-road. The validation study consisted of a within-subjects study design comparing participants riding on-road with riding in the simulator.The study recruited 26 participants ranging in age from 18 to 35 years (M=25.0, SD=4.8). Absolute validity was established for measures of spatial positioning including average lane position, deviation in lane position and average passing distance from kerbside parked cars. Relative validity was established for the average speed of cyclists and their speed reduction on approach to intersections and a degree of validity was established for aspects of the participants head movements on approach to intersections.The study found evidence to suggest that aspects of cyclist behaviour can be investigated using the bicycle simulator, however further validation research may be required in order to more comprehensively validate looking behaviours, more complex performance measures and for a wider age range of cyclists.

Measurement of road crossing behavior of elderly cyclist using bicycle simulator and investigation of induction factor of traffic accident

Measurement of road crossing behavior of elderly cyclist using bicycle simulator and investigation of induction factor of traffic accident

Exploring the Influence of Simulated Road Environments on Cyclist Behavior

An increasing number of people are realiz- ing the advantages of bicycling, which has caused bicy- clist safety concerns and awareness to rise accordingly. This study aims to investigate the capability of combin- ing Virtual Reality technology and bicycle simulation for bicyclist behavior studies. An immersive interactive bi- cycle simulation was developed to explore how subject performance is influenced by virtual road environments through a well-controlled experiment with Oculus Rift headset. 30 people from 18-25 years old were chosen to be subjects, as they are in the highest injury rate per- centile. Results showed that the existence of bike lanes influences cyclist reactions, causing earlier and more braking to occur. Road hazard simulation and "Distance to Brake to Stop" measurement can provide useful in- sight into individual cyclist reactions to different types of road hazards. This study has provided evidence that given the nature of cycling on roads, virtual reality tech- nology can serve as both a safe and effective method to conduct more in-depth behavior studies.

Investigation of Alternative Bicycle Pavement Markings with the Use of a Bicycle Simulator

The past decade has seen increased public interest in sustainable transportation modes in the United States. However, there is a relative lack of guidance regarding standards and specifications for bicycle facilities compared with the highway mode. This project sought to address this deficiency through the investigation of alternative pavement markings for bicycle wayfinding and proper bicycle placement at signalized intersections as part of the federal Nonmotorized Transportation Pilot Program in Columbia, Missouri. This evaluation was accomplished with a bicycle simulator study and postsimulator survey with 27 participants. A network of 37 intersections with characteristics similar to intersections in Columbia was created with the ZouSim simulator. The survey included questions regarding bicycling habits and preferences for the alternative markings. For wayfinding, two alternative types of pavement markings and the signage recommended by the Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices (MUTCD) were evaluated. Both the survey and the simulator results indicated that the Type 2 wayfinding markings with a green circle performed better with respect to visibility and delineating the bicycle route. The bicycle placement portion of the study investigated three alternative types of markings as well as the MUTCD markings and signage to help riders position their bicycle at the correct location to receive a green signal. The bicycle placement results indicated that the Type 1 and Type 2 experimental detector markings resulted in the fewest number of missed detections, while the Type 1 marking was the preferred alternative of the survey participants.

Design and development of 6-DOF system for Virtual Bicycle

There are many variations to the competition that takes place in Olympic track cycling. Hence, a bicycle simulator will bring a lot of benefits to the coaches and the athletes in a practical training. It is extremely low cost compared to a real Velodrome track which is required long construction time due to the unique geometry and size. In this project, a 6-degree-of-freedom (6-DOF) motion platform is designed and developed to simulate the Velodrome track cycling. The parallel manipulator was chosen to control the moving platform because of higher accuracy and greater weight to strength ratio compare to serial manipulator. The 6-DOF platform is controlled by linear actuators and micro-controller. An optical encoder was installed for closed-loop position feedback control. An inverse kinematics model was developed to obtain the movement of the platform, and it was validated with its CAD model. Besides, a design feasibility program was developed to calculate the optimum design dimension of the motion platform. All the positions (3-axes) and orientations (3-rotational axes) data are tracked for analysis purpose. A lab-scale prototype was successfully built for the analysis and validation purpose. A standard Velodrome track dimensions was chosen to be simulated. On the other hand, a gyro accelerometer was installed at the platform to acquire the actual motion of the platform. The data will be used to validate the control algorithms and accuracy of the motion platform. The experiment was conducted and the results are analyzed for further development.

The application of data mining techniques to model visual distraction of bicyclists

This paper presents a novel approach to modelling visual distraction of bicyclists. A unique bicycle simulator equipped with sensors capable of capturing the behaviour of the bicyclist is presented. While cycling two similar scenario routes, once while simultaneously interacting with an electronic device and once without any electronic device, statistics of the measured speed, head movements, steering angle and bicycle road position along with questionnaire data are captured. These variables are used to model the self-assessed distraction level of the bicyclist. Data mining techniques based on random forests, support vector machines and neural networks are evaluated for the modelling task. Out of the total 71 measured variables a variable selection procedure based on random forests is able to select a fraction of those and consequently improving the modelling performance. By combining the random forest-based variable selection and support vector machine-based modelling technique the best overall performance is achieved. The method shows that with a few observable variables it is possible to use machine learning to model, and thus predict, the distraction level of a bicyclist.

Development of Bicycle Simulator and Study of The Factors Which Cause Traffic Accident of Elderly People

Development of Bicycle Simulator and Study of The Factors Which Cause Traffic Accident of Elderly People

Design and Development of A 6-Dof System for Virtual Bicycle Simulator

Design and Development of A 6-Dof System for Virtual Bicycle Simulator

Hybrid Simulators for Product Service-Systems – Innovation Potential Demonstrated on Urban Bike Mobility

One major goal of the Rethinking Prototyping project is to bring scientists from different domains like engineering and arts to explore collaboratively new approaches of development and testing of Product Service Systems (PSS). PSS combine products, services, and infrastructure to fulfil individual customer needs. Therefore, the development of PSS is an extension of traditional engineering design process, which mainly refers to purely tangible products or intangible services into an integrated development process of products and services.The basis is a new technology called Smart Hybrid Prototyping (SHP), a joint development by Fraunhofer IPK and the TU Berlin. SHP is an innovative technology for a multimodal interdisciplinary evaluation of virtual prototypes in early development stages. It is based upon methods of Mixed Reality extended by modern industrial technologies to allow natural interaction with virtual prototypes of mechanical or mechatronic systems. It serves as a bridge between physical reality and digital virtuality.The use cases in this paper are based on urban bike mobility. Therefore, three concepts have been worked out to specify main requirements for an urban hybrid bike simulator. The first use case is from the perspective of a bicycle rental, where rental services for the users can be developed, validated, and optimized. The second use case provides the integration of mobile devices like smartphones and tablets for the development and validation of mobile services for bicyclists. The third use case is oriented on development and validation of new bicycles and urban mobility concepts like e-bikes, pedelecs, tripelecs and sharing services. Based on these generic use cases the requirements on a hybrid bicycle simulator were derived.Why a bicycle simulator? Well, we are firmly convinced that the future of urban mobility is determined from trends such as ecological rethinking and the desire for sports and healthy life. Furthermore, it is one of the most competitive and agile markets using most innovative materials and manufacturing technologies.

Solar Electric Bicycle Body Modeling and Simulation

A new solar electric bicycle design and study were carried out on in this paper. Application of CAD technology to establish three-dimension geometric model, using the kinetic analysis on the frame and other parts for numerical simulation and static strength analysis for the vehicle model design, virtual assembly, complete frame dynamics analysis and vibration analysis, with considering other factors, first on the frame structure improvement, second on security of design calculation analysis and comparison, finally get the ideal body design. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.11591/telkomnika.v11i10.3410

The Response Patterns of Young Bicyclists to a Right-Turning Motorcycle: A Simulator Study

This study was designed to assess how bicyclists (30 men, 30 women) responded to right-turning motorised vehicles, which is a risky situation for bicyclists, and employed a scenario in which a motorcycle made a right turn in front of a bicyclist. The factors of speed difference and cut-in time gap were generated to objectively investigate steering control, speed, and the associated collisions in a bicycle simulator. There was no effect for sex, but as expected, for shorter cut-in time gaps, the steering angles were smaller (deflected to the right to avoid the passing motorcycle), the speeds were lower, and the variations in the steering angle and speed were larger. Variations in the steering angle and speed were unexpectedly lower for larger speed differences than for smaller speed differences. Response patterns comprised 5 patterns: early response and quickly depress the brake, last-moment response and slowly depress the brake, late response and quickly depress the brake, very late response and quickly depress the brake, and no response. Larger speed differences and the no-response pattern resulted in two collisions. Individuals with less experience may not have associated speed differences with potential dangers.

2A2-T07 リハビリテーション用自転車シミュレータの開発(福祉ロボティクス・メカトロニクス(3))

2A2-T07 リハビリテーション用自転車シミュレータの開発(福祉ロボティクス・メカトロニクス(3))

Study on virtual force sensing and force display device for the interactive bicycle simulator

In this paper, a set of novel force display devices for the interactive bicycle simulator is presented for indicating the human–bicycle contact forces at handlebars and foot pedals. The force display devices are attached, respectively, to the handlebars and pedals of the bicycle. The bicycle is placed on a Stewart platform to provided bicycle riding on different terrains and configurations. The electromagnetic torques used to simulate the forward and steering resistance forces are controlled by adjusting the armature current of the DC motor, according to the developed rider–bicycle dynamic (RBD) model. A virtual bicycle riding environment is successfully constructed by the developed devices together with the motion generating subsystem and the visual subsystem. Experimental results have shown that the developed RDB model and the constructed force display devices are effective in capturing and displaying the information on forces.

Implementation of the Interactive Bicycle Simulator with Its Functional Subsystems

When equipped with a handlebar and pedal force display subsystem, motion-generating subsystem, and visual subsystem, the interactive bicycle simulator can bring riders a realistic cycling feeling. In the interactive bicycle simulator, the most important component is the rider-bicycle dynamic model. The Newton-Euler method is adopted to formulate this model. Real-time data gathered by sensors and identified from a terrain database system are used for calculation of the rider-bicycle dynamics. Simple and effective devices are constructed and driven by the outputs of the rider-bicycle dynamic model. These devices are successfully applied to the interactive bicycle simulator.

Full Bicycle Dynamic Model for Interactive Bicycle Simulator

Abstract An interactive bicycle simulator with six degrees of freedom motion system could bring the rider a very realistic riding feeling. An important component of the simulator is the full bicycle dynamic model that simulated the two-wheeled bicycle dynamics. It consists of two slightly coupled submodels: The stability submodel and the vibration submodel. The stability submodel solves the stability of the bicycle under rider’s active maneuvers and the vibration submodel evaluates the vibration response of the bicycle due to uneven road surface. The model was validated by several experiments and successfully applied to the interactive bicycle simulator.