DRIVING SIMULATOR TESTS OF LANE DEPARTURE COLLISION AVOIDANCE SYSTEMS

This report presents the results of a simulator-based exploratory study of Collision Avoidance System (CAS) concepts suitable for roadway departure collision avoidance. Roadway departure crashes account for significant percentages of both the total number of crashes and the number of fatal crashes in the United States. CAS support that could avert or minimize the severity of even a fraction of these crashes would prove beneficial to the driving public. The purpose of the study was to evaluate the following items from a driver-oriented perspective. Sixty-four volunteers participated at the Iowa Driving Simulator (IDS), a six-degree-of-freedom, moving-base simulator with a wide field-of-view image generation system. Sixteen of the participants were randomly assigned to serve in a control group without CAS support; the remaining 48 participants were randomly assigned to groups of 16 in each of three CAS Interface groups: auditory, haptic, or combined-modality.