Driver Model Validation through Interaction with Varying Levels of Haptic Guidance

Driver modeling is essential in the development of haptic guidance systems. A new cybernetic driver model designed to account for the cooperation between the driver and haptic guidance systems has recently been proposed. This paper aims to validate this model in situations of interaction with different levels of haptic guidance on a driving simulator. Two experiments have been performed for this purpose. The first experiment consisted of implementing the driver model in the driving simulator and evaluating its lateral control performance when interacting with a haptic guidance system. The results reveal that the model can be adapted to different sharing levels by adjusting only the gain of an internal model of the steering wheel compliance. The second experiment consisted of estimating the evolution of the gain of this internal model using the unscented Kalman filter. The results reveal consistency between the evolution of the identified parameter and the level of sharing of the haptic guidance system. The driver model represents the process of human driver adaptation to variations in the level of sharing in haptic guidance systems.