Predictive Actuation of a Driving Simulator

Testing of virtual cars in multi-modal virtual environment is an important step in the validation process of new concepts and technologies. A driving simulator with realistic interaction, operating environment and feedback eliminates the difficulties of road test, but allows the understanding of driving behavior, testing driver assistant systems and for traffic research. A static driving simulator is lacking the required displacement and acceleration feedback, but a hexapod motion system can reproduce some of these. The objective of this paper is to present a predictive actuation algorithm for controlling the position of a driving simulator in order to maximize the sensation of displacement and acceleration of the driver. Several driving scenarios are considered and for each an ideal starting point of the motion platform is computed. In case the driver is in the process of approaching a road segment from one the analyzed scenarios, the predictive actuation module will try to move the driver of the simulation platform from the current position towards the ideal position within the perceptibility thresholds.