Fumiko Kubota

Is the useful field of view a good predictor of at-fault crash risk in elderly Japanese drivers?

Although age‐related decline in the useful field of view (UFOV) is well recognized as a risk factor for at‐fault crash involvement in elderly drivers, there is still room to study its applicability to elderly Japanese drivers. In the current study, we thus examined the relationship between UFOV and at‐fault crash history in an elderly Japanese population. We also explored whether potential factors that create awareness of reduced driving fitness could be a trigger for the self‐regulation of driving in elderly drivers.

Methodology of outsourcing design and engineering process

Abstract The paper proposes a methodology to outsource the design and engineering process. The methodology was developed based on our previous experience with production preparation process reengineering, with special emphasis on two technical points: The first point is a visualization technique for the information flow between the design and engineering tasks by using their background relationships. The second point is an integrated technique for the process optimization using the Design Structure Matrix and the skill level bottleneck analysis with a design process simulation. Key findings are shown through applying the methodology to the design management process.

Method and Tool for Design Process Navigation and Automatic Generation of Simulation Models for Manufacturing Systems

Manufacturing system designers should concentrate on designing and planning manufacturing systems instead of spending their efforts on creating the simulation models to verify the design. This paper proposes a method and its tool to navigate the designers through the engineering process and generate the simulation model automatically from the design results. The design agent also supports collaborative design projects among different companies or divisions with distributed engineering and distributed simulation techniques. The idea was implemented and applied to a factory planning process.

Driver steering model based on globally optimal model predictive control.

This paper presents a new driver model based on model predictive control (MPC). The proposed driver model is formulated according to four assumptions. The input of the driver model is generalized as a region of the road excluding obstacles. The proposed model has multiple objectives, consisting of reducing driving effort, and ensuring smoothness and safety margins, taking into account predicted future states. The steering wheel angle of the driver is calculated by evaluating whether the objectives have been achieved using the framework of MPC. Moreover, the evaluation is formulated to ensure that a global optimal solution is obtained. The proposed model explains simulation results on a slalom course and performance when passing through a narrow passage.