Experimental Identification of a Driver Steering Control Model Incorporating Steering Feel

Steering feel, or steering torque feedback, plays an important role in the steering control task. This paper is concerned with developing a mathematical model of the driver-steering-vehicle system with steering feel and identifying the unknown parameters of the model using a fixed-base driving simulator, aiming to replicate real-world steering scenarios. The hypothesis is that a human driver obtains an internal mental model of the steering and vehicle dynamics, which is central to the functions of perception, cognition and action. The model complements earlier work that focused on modelling the role of vestibular (motion) feedback. It is shown that the model is capable of reproducing human drivers’ on-centre steering task of following a target path while compensating for disturbances on the vehicle. The identified driver model parameters are within reasonable ranges. Further work is proposed.