A driving simulator as a virtual reality tool

This paper describes a driving simulator developed for design and evaluation of full-scale driving simulators and for driver-vehicle interaction study. The simulator consists of a real-time vehicle simulation system, visual and audio system, motion system, control force loading system, and experiment console. The real-time vehicle simulation system supervises the overall operation of the simulator and also simulates the dynamic motion of realistic vehicle models in real-time. The visual system generates high fidelity driving scenes that are displayed on a screen by a projector. The motion system generates realistic motion cue using a six degree-of-freedom Stewart platform driven hydraulically. The control force loading system acts as an interface between a driver and the simulator. The experiment console monitors the status of the simulator in operation and also collects and manages experimental data.