Traditional instrumented vehicles for assessing driver performance have often employed bulky cameras and instrumentation. This equipment can adversely affect naturalistic driving by obstructing a driver's field of view, limiting extrapersonal space and providing constant reminders to drivers that they are under observation. To minimise these unwanted effects, the authors developed a multi-purpose field research vehicle with an unobtrusive instrumentation package and cameras. This state-of-the-art mobile laboratory is called "ARGOS" (Automobile for Research in erGOnomics and Safety) after the many-eyed being of ancient Greek myth. ARGOS consists of a mid-sized vehicle with extensive instrumentation and sensors hidden within its infrastructure. This device was designed to assess the safety and usability of prototype automotive technologies and to examine objective indices of driving performance in different populations, including potentially unfit drivers with medical impairments.
Samenvatting