Gilles Reymond

Motion Cueing in the Renault Driving Simulator

Motion cueing in a driving simulator is necessary for advanced studies requiring drivers to accurately perceive and control the motion of their vehicle. The Renault Dynamic Simulator uses a 6-axes electro-mechanical mobile platform with an adequate motion control software. The physical and perceptual validity of the motion cueing is analyzed with respect to actual vehicle acceleration data and human self-motion per-ception criteria. Within the actuator displacement limits, it is capable of directly rendering transient vehicle accelerations whereas sustained linear acceleration cues are simulated by a coordinated platform tilt. Accel-eration transients are extracted by high-pass filtering, but a classical implementation based on linear filters may produce artifacts in some key driving situations. A non-linear motion cueing algorithm was developed to anticipate and reduce these false motion cues.

Visuovestibular perception of self-motion modeled as a dynamic optimization process

Abstract. This article describes a computational model for the sensory perception of self-motion, considered as a compromise between sensory information and physical coherence constraints. This compromise is realized by a dynamic optimization process minimizing a set of cost functions. Measure constraints are expressed as quadratic errors between motion estimates and corresponding sensory signals, using internal models of sensor transfer functions. Coherence constraints are expressed as quadratic errors between motion estimates, and their prediction is based on internal models of the physical laws governing the corresponding physical stimuli. This general scheme leads to a straightforward representation of fundamental sensory interactions (fusion of visual and canal rotational inputs, identification of the gravity component from the otolithic input, otolithic contribution to the perception of rotations, and influence of vection on the subjective vertical). The model is tuned and assessed using a range of well-known psychophysical results, including off-vertical axis rotations and centrifuge experiments. The ability of the model to predict and help analyze new situations is illustrated by a study of the vestibular contributions to self-motion perception during automobile driving and during acceleration cueing in driving simulators. The extendable structure of the model allows for further developments and applications, by using other cost functions representing additional sensory interactions.

Motion Scaling for High-Performance Driving Simulators

Advanced driving simulators aim at rendering the motion of a vehicle with maximum fidelity, which requires increased mechanical travel, size, and cost of the system. Motion cueing algorithms reduce the motion envelope by taking advantage of limitations in human motion perception, and the most commonly employed method is just to scale down the physical motion. However, little is known on the effects of motion scaling on motion perception and on actual driving performance. This paper presents the results of a European collaborative project, which explored different motion scale factors in a slalom driving task. Three state-of-the-art simulator systems were used, which were capable of generating displacements of several meters. The results of four comparable driving experiments, which were obtained with a total of 65 participants, indicate a preference for motion scale factors below 1, within a wide range of acceptable values (0.4-0.75). Very reduced or absent motion cues significantly degrade driving performance. Applications of this research are discussed for the design of motion systems and cueing algorithms for driving simulation.

Drivers’ Perception of Loss of Adherence in Bends: Influence of Motion Rendering

This paper investigated drivers’ perception during situations of loss of adherence (LOA) in static and dynamic driving simulators. The intensity and duration of the LOA were manipulated. Results show that drivers were able to correctly discriminate the different conditions of LOA in both simulators. They also highlight the importance of nonvisual information, with steering wheel haptic cues predominating for the static simulator and both the steering wheel and motion platform predominating for the dynamic simulator. This study is a first step in developing an evaluation method for electronic stability control (ESC) handling in high-performance simulator experiments. [DOI: 10.1115/1.3622752]