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Summary:Negotiating intersections is a complex driving task that is particularly difficult for older drivers. This task requires accurate coordination of multiple driving subtasks, placing high demands on perception, attention and motor control that are known to decline with age. We analyzed intersection negotiation behavior in an instrumented vehicle and found striking differences in how drivers of different ages synchronize speed and heading control when turning right. The older drivers performed most of their steering while standing still instead of while accelerating as younger drivers do. This shift from parallel to serial control is a compensatory solution that drivers employ in response to age related decline in perception, cognition, and motor control abilities. Serialization of turning at an intersection reduces attentional demands largely by eliminating the need to switch attention between different driving sub-tasks.

This article has been accepted for inclusion in a future issue of this journal. Content is final as presented, with the exception of pagination.

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Optimization-based motion cueing algorithms based on model predictive control have been recently implemented to reproduce the motion of a car within the limited workspace of a driving simulator. These algorithms require a reference of the future vehicle motion to compute a prediction of the system response. Assumptions regarding the future reference signals must be made in order to develop effective prediction strategies. However, it remains unclear how the prediction of future vehicle dynamics influences the quality of the motion cueing. In this study two prediction strategies are considered. Oracle: the ideal prediction strategy that knows exactly what the future reference is going to be. Constant: a prediction strategy that ignores every future change and keeps the current vehicle’s linear accelerations and angular velocities constant. The two prediction strategies are used to reproduce a sequence of maneuvers between 0 and 50 km/h. A comparative analysis is carried out to objectively evaluate the influence of the prediction strategies on motion cueing quality. Dedicated indicators of correlation, delay and absolute error are used to compare the effects of the adopted prediction on simulator motion. Also the motion cueing mechanisms adopted by the different conditions are analyzed, together with the usage of simulator workspace. While the constant strategy provided reasonable cueing quality, the results show that knowledge of the future vehicle trajectory reduces the delay and improves correlation with the reference trajectory, it allows the combined usage of different motion cueing mechanisms and increases the usage of workspace.

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Time-varying perceived motion mismatch due to motion scaling in curve driving simulation.