The Run-Off-Road Collision Avoidance Using IVHS Countermeasures program is to address the single vehicle crash problem through application of technology to prevent and/or reduce the severity of these crashes. This report describes the findings of the driving simulator experiments conducted for Task 3. In these experiments, 64 subjects drove a simulated vehicle over a 40-minute course on the Iowa Driving Simulator (IDS), a six degree-of-freedom, moving-base simulator with a wide field-of-view image generation system. For 48 of the subjects, the vehicle was equipped with lateral and longitudinal countermeasures to warn the driver of roadway departure danger. Different subjects experienced a variety of countermeasure algorithms and driver interfaces, including auditory, haptic and combined auditory and haptic displays. There were also 16 subjects who drove the same simulated course, but received no countermeasure support. Results suggest that the roadway departure countermeasures have potential for preventing crashes. Driver interfaces that provide information about the appropriate driver response appear to have some performance benefit. Either auditory or haptic displays appear promising, but a combination auditory and haptic display appeared to produce driver overload. (Author/publisher)
Abstract