In basic design of vehicle active safety, general driver's operation in the emergency situation has not been considered. In this paper, the avoiding maneuver is examined using a driving simulator, and the effect of driver's managing ability and vehicle characteristics are studied by the simulation. The avoiding operations of the general driver, especially young drivers or elder drivers, are investigated in simulated driving situations. From the results, almost all drivers avoid the sudden emerged obstacle with only braking action. It is observed that old drivers are delayed about 0.25 seconds in the avoidance action compared with the young drivers. These driver's reaction and operated values are gathered for each experimental condition as the database system for extracting the data. The general driver's operating model is also constructed with the steering and the braking operation. In the case of avoiding with only braking operation, it is clear that whether coming into collision with the obstacle or not is affected by not only the braking reaction time but also the time constant of braking operation model.
Abstract