VIRTUAL - Virtual reality systems for perceived ergonomic quality testing of driving task and design
Overview
Background & policy context:
VIRTUAL aims at developing innovative VE systems for vehicle testing where the driver could be able to simulate real driving tasks at a high level of coherence with reality in terms of behaviour and perception. The innovation and technological potential of such tools towards the improvement of new vehicles and towards potential application for the training of drivers is commented in the following considerations. Actually ergonomic activities regarding vehicles are performed in three main steps:
1. Development of criteria to be used for the subjective assessment of the vehicle quality.
Such criteria are obtained via experimental tests involving subjects on physical mock-ups (real and/or simplified). The method requires extensive testing on several parametric variants of the vehicles involving panels of subjects representative of different anthropometric characteristics, visual capabilities, driving behaviours. Such methodological activity is performed off the vehicle development process and is rather expensive (many mock-ups, many subjects) to obtain results sufficiently representative of the drivers' population.
2. Methodological support, numerical and experimental, to the concept design of the vehicles, prior to the availability of physical prototypes.
The numerical methods analyse the interaction of a digital representation of the human with a digital representation of the vehicle. Such representation range from simplified 2D mannequins interacting with schematic layout of the cabin up to 3D mannequins interacting with 3D models of the vehicle derived from CAD/CAS descriptions. The aim is to provide an ergonomic assessment of the design solution covering aspects such as visibility, posture, and reach of the controls. The evaluation criteria used are those derived from the development activities described above, in addition to standard criteria of general validity. The experimental methods are carried out to obtain a preliminary ranking of different design options by a direct testing with subjects using simplified mock ups of the different solutions. The limitation is the poor representation of the real context and then the real representativity of the subjective ranking in view of the final perceived quality.
3. Application to vehicle refinement and problem solving.
The numerical methods are similar to those used in concept design, the experimental methods can be carried out on prototypes. In general then it is possible to perform more refined ass
Objectives:
The main objective of the project is to develop an integrated platform, based on Virtual Reality (VR) technology, including systems for testing and related experimental procedures, to be used for better studying and improving the ergonomic design of the vehicles, in the process of making the driving tasks simpler and more comfortable and then of increasing safety. The driving idea is to make available testing systems where a person can interact with a virtual representation of the vehicle and perform realistic evaluation tests on relevant aspects of the ergonomic quality of the vehicles, such as internal and external visibility, reach and operation of the main controls such as steering wheel and gear shift, perception of lateral and rear visibility during manoeuvring.
Methodology:
The project intends to develop three types of systems characterised by increasing levels of virtualisation of the vehicle to be tested and corresponding complexity of the hardware and software devices.
- The first system aims at reproducing a level of presence of the inner and outer environment of the vehicle suitable for the assessments of internal and external visibility.
- The second system aims at introducing the tactile interaction with the controls of the vehicle, simulated by physical mock ups with controlled interactive force feedback, while giving the person the visual representation of his/her movements (avatar) in the virtual environment by means of appropriate techniques of motion tracking, capturing and graphical reproduction.
- The third, most sophisticated, system aims at substituting the physical mock ups of the controls by more generic force effectors (haptic interfaces) able to give the person the sense of reaching and operating a real control (existing and defined only in the virtual environment) coherent with its characteristics as represented in the virtual environment.
Share this page