Driving simulators have been around for a number of years now. Compared to the flight simulators the limited number of advanced driving simulators in notable even in a global perspective. Economical reasons govern this. Very expensive real vehicles for which the operations involves risky manouvres justify the use of an expensive simulator for training purposes at a high cost per hour. These arguments are valid for airline and jet fighter pilots as well as tank and submarine crews. However for passengers car and truck drivers such a favourable cost-benefit ratio does not exist. Thus one may only expect to find advanced driving simulators at research institutes or automotive manufacturers where research or development may justify the high costs. This presentation will mainly confine itself to driving simmulators with moving bases but the observations and comments on the visual systems are applicable to fixed base simulators as well.
Abstract