Vehicle Cockpit Research Articles

Research on the Subjective and Objective Evaluation Strategy of the Intelligent Vehicle Cockpit Based on the User Experience

The trend of intelligent networking in automobile industry is developing in full swing, with more and more functions. But feature richness does not necessarily reflect user needs. In order to perfect the evaluation system in the field of automobile intelligent cockpit, this paper constructs the subjective and objective evaluation strategy and tests the function of automobile intelligent cockpit. By building evaluation strategy, standardizing the tester, testing process pole test dimension, combining with subjective evaluation and eye movement, EEG device objective data, clear model and algorithm. Finally, the feasibility of the modified strategy is verified by a practical case.

Testing the Performance of Color Difference Formula for a Mixed Display Technology Setup

Automotive cockpits are becoming more and more digital day by day and this is evident by the increase in the number of displays inside the cockpit. With the advent of OLED displays, automotive cockpits not only have LCD but have started having mixed display technologies. A recent example of such a cockpit display is the MBUX Hyperscreen in Mercedes EQS. A general situation is most mid ranged cars from Renault includes several displays inside the cockpit. These displays are placed at different locations inside the cockpit and go through various changes in external environmental condition during day and night. A vehicle cockpit experiences a wide range of illumination change during the day, from 35 kLux in bright sunlight to a few Lux during the night. The displays are generally used in high luminance range during the day and very low luminance during the night. Traditional color difference formulae like the CIEDE76 or CIEDE2000, the latter being the current industry standard, are defined for a specific set of evaluation conditions. For the myriad of different conditions that the displays undergo inside the cockpit, there isn’t a recommended color difference formula which can be used to quantify the color difference between any two chosen displays inside the cockpit. An attempt has been made to include various real time parameters involving color difference evaluation between two displays, one of which is an LCD and other OLED. The motive of this study is to find out which color difference formula is the most representative of the perceived color difference between two mixed technology displays for a group of observers. The metric used for this the study is the CIE recommended STRESS index. The outcome of this research is to serve as a reference regarding the choice of color difference metric by display manufactures and OEM suppliers.

An Intelligent Multi-Sourced Sensing System to Study Driver’s Visual Behaviors

Understanding how changes in visual and attentional behaviors impact driving as we age is still a subject studied by the research community. However, little attention has been paid to using sensing and AI techniques to conduct such studies. We present a multi-sourced intelligent sensing system that infers the visual point of attention (VPoA) associated with five vehicle's cockpit zones with an accuracy of 98%. The VPoA is inferred from the pitch, yaw, and roll angles of head movements captured with inertial sensors and a facial recognition application. The system also includes a tablet-based application that automatically collects data from the driving context, e.g., speed and location. It also enables an annotator to add observed drivers' actions, e.g., interactions with a passenger. We conducted a naturalistic study with 15 younger adults and 15 older adults to demonstrate the system's efficacy to identify visual behavior patterns similar to those identified in previous studies that have used traditional data collection methods. A new finding is that the younger group looks more frequently at the lap than the elderly group, independently if a passenger was present. The Lap was the VPoA associated with using the cellphone.

Evaluation of the Tiller Switch Layout of a Tractor Using Eye-Fixation Related Potentials.

The human-machine interface (HMI) of a tractor cockpit includes not only the steering wheel and pedals, but also many levers and switches. According to a report from the National Agriculture and Food Research Organization of Japan, the HMI layout often differs from the operator's expectation. This gap between expectations and reality has led to operator errors and market complaints. However, few reports have ergonomically evaluated these arrangements. Our previous work showed that this gap can be evaluated by the amplitude of the P300 component of the event-related potentials (ERPs) for discrimination tasks by using a picture of the vehicle cockpit on the display. However, in real-world driving and operation situations, eye movements occur. In such cases, the eye-fixation related potential (EFRP) may be used. The EFRP appears at the end of a saccade, which is a rapid movement of the eyes between fixation points. Its positive component, called the lambda response, is reported to reflect the human attention level to visual targets. We hypothesize that if the HMI layout differs from the user's expectation, operation becomes difficult and the user's attention to the target during operation will be reduced. In order to confirm this hypothesis, an experiment was conducted during the actual operation of a tractor while changing the tiller switch position. The participants were 13 adult males with experience in tractor operations. The amplitude of the lambda wave was reduced when the switch position was different from the user's expectations, reflecting the decrease in attention caused by the increased difficulty of operating the tiller. We suggest that the amplitude of the lambda response can be used as the evaluation index for optimizing the switch position.

Virtual Switches and Indicators in Automotive Displays

<div class="section abstract"><div class="htmlview paragraph">This paper presents recent advances in automotive microprocessor, operating system, and supporting software technology that supports regulatory and/or functional safety graphics within vehicle cockpit displays. These graphics include “virtual switches” that replace physical switches in the vehicle, as well as “virtual indicators” that replace physical indicator lights. We discuss the functional safety design process and impacts to software and hardware architecture as well as the software design methods to implement End-To-End [E2E] network protection between different ECUs and software processes. We also describe hardware monitoring requirements within the display panel, backlighting, and touch screen and examine an example system design to illustrate the concepts.</div></div>

3-D Displays for Use in the Vehicle Cockpit

3-D Displays for Use in the Vehicle Cockpit

Multi-EmoNet: A Novel Multi-Task Neural Network for Driver Emotion Recognition

Abstract Driver’s emotion affects driving safety Hu et al. (2013), therefore monitoring driver’s emotion could benefit road safety. However, the complex illumination conditions in a vehicle cockpit significantly challenge the effectiveness of camera-based facial expression recognition (FER) systems. To solve this problem, we proposed Multi-EmoNet, a novel multi-task neural network, to classify human facial expression under illumination variations and to restore noisy images. Our experiments demonstrate these two tasks are complementary and together facilitate better network representation learning. Our approach obtains significantly better classification accuracy on images with illumination variation compared to the baseline networks. More importantly, the proposed multi-task network is a general architecture that can be applied to any noise involved image classification problem.

Improvement of safe stopping distance and accident risk coefficient based on active driver sight field on real road conditions

In this paper, a new model based on factors of driver, vehicle and environment was developed to determine the ‘safe stopping distance’ of the vehicles, and tested on real road conditions by using equipment placed on the vehicle. The new stopping distance model has been developed based on the stopping distance formula commonly used in the literature. Then, an ‘active driver sight field’ was created considering effect of factors of driver, vehicle and environment. The safe field of view of driver, the safe escape area and safe stopping distance value of vehicle was transferred continuously during driving to the driver through the driver information screen positioned on front console in vehicle cockpit. In addition, a new approach has been developed to evaluate possible accident risks by using relationship between the safe escape area of the vehicle and the safe field of view of the driver. As a result, generalised stopping distance formula was yielded results closer to the actual road results, when expanded by using factors of driver, vehicle and environment. It was determined that obtained accident risk coefficients could be used to detection of accident risk with minor errors that especially at low speeds up to 60 km/h.

A multi-objective optimization framework for energy and asset management in an industrial Microgrid

Increased competition and reduced profit margins are pushing manufacturing plants to find ways to improve operational efficiency and reduce costs. At the same time, government incentives and community initiatives are encouraging the industrial sector to pursue sustainability in operation and energy consumption. This has introduced a paradigm shift where the focus of plant operation is moving from solely cost reduction to one that considers asset management, emission control, and utilization of alternative energy resources. Mathematically speaking, the problem is changing from a single objective optimization to one with multiple objective functions that may at times be contradictory. The focus of this paper is to propose a methodology for management of an industrial plant considering the above factors. It is assumed that the plant is equipped with distributed generation (DG), and can also participate in demand response (DR). Further, the effect of ambient temperature on the lifetime and available capacity of assets such as the plant transformer has been taken into account and incorporated into their daily schedule. The objective is then to find an optimal solution for operating various workstations in such a way that it minimizes the operational costs, the emissions produced, and the loss of life of assets exposed to excess temperatures. A multi-objective optimization problem is therefore formulated through extended lexicographic goal programming, which is further modified to ensure Pareto optimality. A case study has also been presented for a manufacturing plant for luxury vehicle cockpit assembly line.

Help on the road: Effects of vehicle manual consultation in driving performance across modalities

The growing advancements of in-vehicle electronics and the intrusion of consumer electronics in the vehicle cockpit have increased the complexity of in-car experiences. Therefore, vehicle manuals are needed, now more than ever, to provide information and guidance. Automakers have extended user assistance through multimedia, integrated manuals, online services and telephonic assistance. However, no driver-centric interfaces have been created to provide vehicle documentation assistance effectively. Drivers are expected to interrupt the driving experience in order to find vehicle information in a paper manual. This paper compares the effects on driving performance and cognitive load when consulting a manual in a simulated driving environment through various conditions. These conditions consist of interacting with a voice activated vehicle manual called the Voice User Help, an on-board multimedia manual, a passenger, and a call center. Results suggest that any kind of interaction to access information while driving has an impact on the driver׳s attention based on a decrease in driving performance and increase of cognitive load. However, amongst all modalities, voice interfaces seem to be the better option for consulting information while driving. Also, and under some circumstances, interaction with a conversational manual system appears to be safer than human-to-human communication.

A ROBUST SPEECH RECOGNITION SYSTEM USING A GENERAL REGRESSION NEURAL NETWORK

General Regression Neural Networks (GRNN) have been applied to phoneme identification and isolated word recognition in clean speech. In this paper, the authors extended this approach to Arabic spoken word recognition in adverse conditions. In fact, noise robustness is one of the most challenging problems in Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) and most of the existing recognition methods, which have shown to be highly efficient under noise free conditions, drastically fail drastically in noisy environments. The proposed system has been tested for Arabic digit recognition at different Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR) levels and under four noisy conditions: multitalker babble background, car production hall (factory), military vehicle (leopard tank) and fighter jet cockpit (buccaneer) issued from NOISEX-92 data base. The proposed scheme was successfully compared to similar recognizers based on the Multilayer Perceptron (MLP), the Elman Recurrent Neural Network (RNN) and the discrete Hidden Markov Model (HMM). The experimental results show that the use of nonparametric regression with an appropriate smoothing factor (spread) improved the generalization power of the neural network and the global performance of the speech recognizer in noisy environments.

E2 Reach envelop and discomfort map construction under simulated driving task condition(English session)

Construction of driver's reach envelops including associated discomfort map is an important task for designing and assessing the operational range in a vehicle cockpit. The primary objective of this study was to build three dimensional reach envelops with associated discomfort map under simulated driving task condition. In addition, a statistical correlation and regression analyses were performed to indentify and quantify the effects of the geographical parameters of reach envelop on the discomfort rating. Using a digital human modeling scheme, reach motion was also reconstructed and further examined to figure out three dimensional joint angle change of body articulation which plays more important roles as biomechanical discomfort factors in reach motion.

HMI with Adaptive Control Elements

Control elements with an adaptively variable gestalt (construction, form and surface) can relieve the user when operating complex information systems. The research project by the Institute for Engineering Design and Industrial Design (IKTD), Research and Teaching Department Industrial Design Engineering at the University of Stuttgart (Germany) presented here is mainly focused on the operation of information systems by means of the blind use of control elements located in the tertiary field of vision in the vehicle cockpit.

Modularisation and outsourcing: who drives whom? A study of generational sequences in the US automotive cockpit industry

In this paper, we study the interactions between modularity and outsourcing in the auto industry. Focusing on vehicle cockpit projects in North America, we collect data over three product architecture generations and the associated shifts in firm boundaries for multiple processes covering product development and production. We find that the direction of influence between product architecture and firm boundary varies across individual processes and over time, resulting in a zig-zag path towards higher levels of modularity and outsourcing over the observed timeframe. The relative strength of the factors that drive these changes appears to be dependent on (a) idiosyncrasies of the logic of individual processes, i.e., their cost structure, their perceived strategic value, and the capabilities available in the supply chain for their completion, and on (b) the relevance and relative weight of external factors such as labour costs, capital cost, and external development of technologies.

AHS에서 차량군의 속도와 거리 변화에 따른 운전자의 생체신호와 감성 평가

The one of the most important factors is the platoon design on developing AH3(Advanced Highway System), as it is related to traffic efficiency and drivers' safety. This study was evaluated that how much speed is comfortable for drivers and how long distance is appropriate for vehicular gap of platoon by measuring drivers' physiology signal and sensibility. A fixed-based AHS simulator was developed by using a real vehicle cockpit and the restructured part of Korean highway for human factors evaluation. The EEG(electroencephalogram), ECG (electrocardiogram) and GSR(Galvanic Skin Response) were measured for obtaining drivers' physiology signal according to the change of speed and gap. The brain wave(α, β, δ, θ) by EEG, the response of the autonomic nervous system. the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system, by ECG, and relax-arousal situation by GSR were analyzed. The SD(Semantic Differential) method was also applied to evaluate drivers' sensibility by 5-grade evaluation scale with 96 adjectives. SSQ(Simulator Sickness Questionnaire) was used to measure the simulator sickness of pre and post driving, two times. As the results, drivers were comfortable with 120km/h speed of platoon and lam to 15m vehicular distance. The results of this study may differ from the adaption of the reality because of many parameters. However, the purpose of this study is show to significant results of the drivers' safety and the acceptability of human factors evaluation.

Pilot training simulators

A pilot training simulator system is disclosed that simulates a predetermd vehicle and the operational environment pertinent to the vehicle in such manner that the pilot being trained in the system may be responsive to the realistic impressions effected by this combination. Included in the system is a first subsystem for producing a video readout of various terrain and target scenes, a simulated vehicle cockpit second subsystem to which the terrain and target scenes are provided, and a third subsystem for providing a motion picture to the windshield of the simulated vehicle cockpit. A motion generator imparts realistic movements to the first subsystem and simulated vehicle cockpit, and console controls permit the manual operational control of both.

Dynamics of a Crash Victim-A Finite Segment Model

A vehicle-occupa nt, crash-simulation model is developed. The model consists of a finite-segment representation of the human body, together with a vehicle cockpit that includes a seat and crash intrusion surfaces (windshield, doors, etc.). The human body model is constrained to the cockpit by seat and shoulder belts. The equations of motion are developed for the model by using Lagrange's form of d'Alembert's principle. These equations then are coded into a computer program and solved numerically using a fourth-order Runge-Kutta method. Sample motions for several crash situations are presented and discussed. Nomenclature ak = acceleration of Gk inR Bk = bodies of the human model (& = 2,..., 12) Fk = external force applied to Bk Fp = generalized active force Fp = generalized inertia force Gk = mass center of Bk Ik = inertia dyadic of Bk relative to G^ mk ^massofB^