The present study deals with the question whether an active gas-pedal may serve as element of an integrated information system in a car. The idea behind the use of active controls is to reduce driver workload by using the controls, i.e. pedals and steering-wheel not only as control device but also as an information system to the driver. A short literature review is presented in which the effectiveness of conventional speed and headway controlling measures is discussed. Referring to the use of active controls in aerospace it is indicated that an active gaspedal might be an effective feedback system when using the pedal force as information carrier. For the sake of experimentation a servo-controlled, programmable gas-pedal was developed and mounted in the TNO driving simulator. In addition a explorative experiment was carried out to demonstrate the potential effects of such a device. Subjects performed a dual tracking task with the steering-wheel and the gas-pedal controlling the horizontal and vertical position of a pointer which was projected on a screen in front of the simulator mock-up. Different force feedback characteristics of the gas-pedal served as the main independant variable. The results show that force feedback about the tracking error indeed may strongly improve performance. (Author/publisher)
Abstract