Development of Driving Simulator for Safety Training of Agricultural Tractor Operators

Abstract

Purpose: This study was aimed at developing a tractor-driving simulator for the safety training of agricultural tractor operators. Methods: The developed simulator consists of five principal components: mock operator control devices, a data acquisition and processing device, a motion platform, a visual system that displays a computer model of the tractor, a motion platform, and a virtual environment. The control devices of a real tractor cabin were successfully converted into mock operator control devices in which sensors were used for relevant measurements. A 3D computer model of the tractor was also implemented using 3ds Max, tractor dynamics, and the physics of Unity 3D. The visual system consisted of two graphic cards and four monitors for the simultaneous display of the four different sides of a 3D object to the operator. The motion platform was designed with two rotational degrees of freedom to reduce cost, and inverse kinematics was used to calculate the required motor positions and to rotate the platform. The generated virtual environment consisted of roads, traffic signals, buildings, rice paddies, and fields. Results: The effectiveness of the simulator was evaluated by a performance test survey administered to 128 agricultural machinery instructors, 116 of whom considered the simulator as having potential for improving safety training. Conclusions: From the study results, it is concluded that the developed simulator can be effectively used for the safety training of agricultural tractor operators.

Development of Mock Control Devices and Data Acquisition Apparatus for Power Tiller Training Simulator

“…A simulator consists of five principal components: mock control devices, computer dynamic model, visual system, motion platform, and virtual environment (Kim et al, 2014). As shown in Figure 1, the structure of a power tiller is different from that of other vehicles, such as tractors and cars.…”

“…It is therefore necessary to train power tiller operators in safe farming. Although empirical safety training is more effective than theoretical training, the use of a real power tiller for such training can be dangerous, especially on roads and slopes (Kim et al, 2014).…”

“…They have gained popularity as not only research tools in fields like vehicle system design and human factor studies, but also training tools. The main advantage of driving simulator education is that real driving situations can be reproduced for educational purposes in a safe and easily controllable environment (Lee et al, 1998;Kim et al, 2014). Rapid increase in the computational power and graphic capabilities of desktop computers over the last decade has enabled researchers to build high-fidelity driving simulators at reasonably low costs (Karmi et al, 2008).…”

“…Rapid increase in the computational power and graphic capabilities of desktop computers over the last decade has enabled researchers to build high-fidelity driving simulators at reasonably low costs (Karmi et al, 2008). Although driving simulators have been used extensively in the automotive industry for many years, very few have been developed for agricultural vehicles; e.g., the tractor simulator by Kim et al (2014). Considering that the structures of power tillers and tractors are completely different, the objective of this study was to develop an operator control device similar to a real power tiller that can be used to train agricultural power tiller operators.…”

A Low-Cost Platform for Modeling and Controlling the Yaw Dynamics of an Agricultural Tractor to Gain Autonomy

“…The work of [15] established virtual reality (VR) experiments to test different working conditions of the wheel with the terrain. In [16], experiments were conducted on the tractor autonomy of the branch New Holland TZ25DA model with the help of LabVIEW and PXI system in modeling the dynamics and implementing a frequency domain identification method to determine the tire side-slip angles and lateral forces. In [17], a platform was developed for traffic safety operation with a 2 degree of freedom driving simulator.…”