Andreas Siegel

Automatic Emergency Steering with Distracted Drivers: Effects of Intervention Design

Driver inattention is reported to be one of the most prominent contributing factors to crashes. Modern vehicles feature sensor equipment able to detect an imminent collision, potentially permitting advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) to cope for such human error. Steering interventions, however, make high demands on the human-machine-interaction. Unlike in autonomous emergency braking, conflicting driver input cannot be omitted. Three different ADAS configurations for an automatic emergency steering intervention with small lateral offset were tested against an unassisted baseline condition in a driving experiment with distracted drivers. The results suggest an influence of feedback modalities and actuator choice.

Validation of driving behavior in the Vehicle in the Loop: Steering responses in critical situations

Combining real driving experience with the safety and replicability of a simulation, the Vehicle in the Loop (VIL) setup potentially qualifies as an ideal tool for the development and evaluation of safety-related driver assistance systems. Previous studies have assessed this high-fidelity simulators validity for longitudinal driving behavior. Aiming to validate the VIL setup with regard to lateral driving behavior, an experiment was conducted comparing steering behavior of 48 participants throughout the same critical traffic scenario experienced in a real driving environment and in the VIL simulation. Steering behavior was found to be less intense in the virtual driving environment. It was, however, affected equally in both driving environments by driver-independent steering wheel torque, demonstrating relative validity of the VIL setup with regard to steering responses in challenging situations.