Creation of a driver preference objective metric to evaluate ground vehicle steering systems

The evaluation of vehicle steering systems has typically been performed by engineers and consumer focus groups using in-vehicle and automotive simulator studies. In the latter case, driver preferences have been extensively gathered using written questionnaires. However, this delays the testing procedure and may introduce outside influences that may skew the results. In this paper, an objective steering preference metric has been created to gather steering preferences without directly communicating with the driver. Streaming vehicle data has been recorded, processed, and correlated with subjective response data to create a global steering preference metric. A combination of the vehicle's yaw rate, longitudinal acceleration, and lateral acceleration demonstrated an excellent correlation with survey responses regardless of the steering setting. Furthermore, changes in the steering ratio resulted in an even stronger correlation between the objective data (longitudinal acceleration, front tire angle, and throttle position) and test subject questionnaire responses. Overall, the proposed index offers a unique approach to evaluate steering system designs.