Special Demands for a Moving-base System for an OFF-Road Driving Simulator

摘要

In comparison with the real vehicle driving simulators offer the possibility to carry out most different driving situations with no outside influences under ecological and also economic conditions reproducibly at any time. The quality of the simulation is substantially determined by the used hard- and software. In the area of the visualization within the last few years great improvements have been realized due to the considerable increase of computer power, whereas the information provided by the motion system is discussed very controversially. Depending on the specific requirements the effort of building of a driving simulator is not always in a justifiable in relation to its intended use. Therefore basic investigations have to be done to define minimum requirements to an effective and also economic layout of a driving simulator subjected to its intended field of application. Especially in the area of off-road driving it is not always possible to simulate all vehicle movements true to scale. Therefore it has to be analysed, which movement information for the representation of a realistic driving impression is perceived by the driver of a vehicle and which can be reduced without cue conflict for the human being. This paper introduces extracts of an approach to evaluate the influence of the interaction of the vestibular and the visual information on the movement impression. Therefore tests with the driving simulator MARS have been carried out. The thresholds of perception for pitch and roll angles without sight and afterwards with different visual information have been analysed. Furthermore test subjects have driven on a predefined test course with different scaled haptic information. It has turned out that the visual information has a considerable influence on the motion perception. The influence raises with the complexity of the demands on the sense organs and on the concentration of the driver. This above all is reflected in visual informations, which does not fit to the actual haptic information with the consequence of a possible nausea. Especially in the area of simulating the off-road drive the haptic information can be reduced by about 30% without restrictions at the motion impression. Tests not presented within this paper show that superimposed oscillations, which occur typically at off-road driving, lower the required motion representation furthermore.