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Small scale driving simulators: A source of realistic data ?

Small scale driving simulators: A source of realistic data ?
Small scale driving simulators: A source of realistic data ?
Driving simulators are a common way to assess the impact of car driver behaviour in situations that cannot be safely recreated on real roads, or where it is required to put a range of participants (age, gender, driving experience, etc.) in exactly the same scenario to assess variation in behaviour. Because the experiment participants know that they are not driving a real car however there remains an open question of how realistically drivers are behaving and therefore how representative of true conditions such data can be. Several full scale driving simulators exist where the driver sits inside a real car body and uses the actual steering wheel, pedals, etc. as the controls to maximise the sense of realism and encourage realistic driving. The high development and operating costs of full scale driving simulators however make these inappropriate for smaller studies or where the simulator needs to be quickly moved between locations.
This paper therefore reports on a study of driver 'immersion' (the feeling of being present in the simulated rather than the real world) in small scale driving simulators. Participants were seated in a standard office style environment and used combinations of off-the-shelf hardware for both vehicle control (from a keyboard and mouse to a mini steering wheel) and visualisation (from a large screen TV to a Virtual Reality headset) to drive around a simulated suburban and motorway scenario. Results show that even simple combinations of control/display can induce a feeling of immersion and realistic driving within participants, provided that fine levels of vehicle control and vision are possible. This confirms the potential of smaller scale driving simulators to be a valid source of data for quantifying car driver behaviour.
Waterson, Ben
60a59616-54f7-4c31-920d-975583953286
Osowski, Chris
50ff2ca5-f0d7-4bc7-aadb-5a53bc92dbe3
Wills, Gary
3a594558-6921-4e82-8098-38cd8d4e8aa0
Baker, James
a8a45768-5dc3-482f-98d2-d067d66a299c
Nugraha, Aditya Tafta
df33fa16-daeb-4d68-bd65-c26cda240a5b
Waterson, Ben
60a59616-54f7-4c31-920d-975583953286
Osowski, Chris
50ff2ca5-f0d7-4bc7-aadb-5a53bc92dbe3
Wills, Gary
3a594558-6921-4e82-8098-38cd8d4e8aa0
Baker, James
a8a45768-5dc3-482f-98d2-d067d66a299c
Nugraha, Aditya Tafta
df33fa16-daeb-4d68-bd65-c26cda240a5b

Waterson, Ben, Osowski, Chris, Wills, Gary, Baker, James and Nugraha, Aditya Tafta (2017) Small scale driving simulators: A source of realistic data ? 59th Annual Conference of the Operational Research Society, , Loughborough, United Kingdom. 12 - 14 Sep 2017.

Record type: Conference or Workshop Item (Other)

Abstract

Driving simulators are a common way to assess the impact of car driver behaviour in situations that cannot be safely recreated on real roads, or where it is required to put a range of participants (age, gender, driving experience, etc.) in exactly the same scenario to assess variation in behaviour. Because the experiment participants know that they are not driving a real car however there remains an open question of how realistically drivers are behaving and therefore how representative of true conditions such data can be. Several full scale driving simulators exist where the driver sits inside a real car body and uses the actual steering wheel, pedals, etc. as the controls to maximise the sense of realism and encourage realistic driving. The high development and operating costs of full scale driving simulators however make these inappropriate for smaller studies or where the simulator needs to be quickly moved between locations.
This paper therefore reports on a study of driver 'immersion' (the feeling of being present in the simulated rather than the real world) in small scale driving simulators. Participants were seated in a standard office style environment and used combinations of off-the-shelf hardware for both vehicle control (from a keyboard and mouse to a mini steering wheel) and visualisation (from a large screen TV to a Virtual Reality headset) to drive around a simulated suburban and motorway scenario. Results show that even simple combinations of control/display can induce a feeling of immersion and realistic driving within participants, provided that fine levels of vehicle control and vision are possible. This confirms the potential of smaller scale driving simulators to be a valid source of data for quantifying car driver behaviour.

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More information

Published date: 14 September 2017
Venue - Dates: 59th Annual Conference of the Operational Research Society, , Loughborough, United Kingdom, 2017-09-12 - 2017-09-14

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 420219
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/420219
PURE UUID: fae597c5-0d92-448d-ba83-525cd5e7544a
ORCID for Ben Waterson: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0001-9817-7119
ORCID for Chris Osowski: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0002-1077-6983
ORCID for Gary Wills: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0001-5771-4088
ORCID for James Baker: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0001-5099-9228
ORCID for Aditya Tafta Nugraha: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0002-4754-4713

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Date deposited: 02 May 2018 16:30
Last modified: 02 Mar 2023 02:36

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Contributors

Author: Ben Waterson ORCID iD
Author: Chris Osowski ORCID iD
Author: Gary Wills ORCID iD
Author: James Baker ORCID iD
Author: Aditya Tafta Nugraha ORCID iD

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