Evaluation of steering model depending on gazing distance by using driving simulator

To analyze the driving behavior is important for design a comfortable automatic driving. So far, conventional PID models was widely used to steer the vehicle. It had been assumed that the driver looks at the constant point in conventional PID model. However, all drivers have experiences that the gazing distance changes according to the situations. The PID gain of the steering model are modified depending on driver's gazing distance. The facts are familiar, but the relationship between driver's steering gain and the gazing distance has not been clarified yet. If this relation becomes clear, it can be helpful for the comfortable driving assistance and/or automatic driving systems to provide for each driver. In this paper, how to model the steering behavior is discussed and steering model depending on gazing distance is proposed. The features of the model are real-time measurement of gazing distance, and incorporating the gazing distance explicitly into a model. The effectiveness of the model is evaluated using a Honda driving simulator assuming an actual driving environment.