The driving simulator at the University of Leeds is one of a new generation of simulators which can be termed "medium cost". They fall in between the very expensive moving base simulators which can cost tens of millions of pounds (e.g. the new U.S. national driving simulator in Iowa) and the relatively cheap units that have been developed using video-disks or arcade game technology. The typical features of the medium-cost simulators are: (1) the provision of a full-sized and complete vehicle, with all the normal controls operational; (2) the use of real-time animation to create a scene that is projected in front of the driver; (3) construction of the simulator around a specialized visual simulation workstation (costing perhaps #100,000); and (4) the lack of a moving base to subject the driver to gravitational and inertia forces. The Leeds simulator is a "rural simulator", in that it has been designed to create a wide range of rural driving scenes, but it is hoped in the future to develop it into a simulator that can also present urban conditions. The working of the simulator is described, together with software tools and applications. (A)
Abstract