The objective of this study was to comprehensively evaluate vibrations with dummies representing infants aged 0, 3, and 9 months lying or sitting in five strollers and two cargo bicycles with dedicated baby seats on six common road surfaces using the ISO standard for whole-body vibration. Strollers induced on average 0.4 ms (Formula presented.) on tarmac and up to 5.0 ms (Formula presented.) on cobblestones at a mean walking speed of 5.3 km h (Formula presented.). Cargo bicycles induced on average 0.6 ms (Formula presented.) on tarmac and up to 10.7 ms (Formula presented.) at 25 km h (Formula presented.) on paver bricks. The standard suggests the highest accelerations for strollers and cargo bicycles are extremely uncomfortable and continuous exposure should be limited to less than 10 min. Vintage strollers have reduced vibrations compared to modern strollers, indicating benefits of compliant suspensions. We recommend that designers systematically consider vibration, users avoid prolonged exposure to surfaces rougher than tarmac, and researchers pursue scientifically founded test procedures and standards for infant vibration.

Prolonged exposure to whole-body vibration (WBV) is a key contributor to motion discomfort in vehicles, including motion sickness and ride comfort. This issue becomes more compelling in automated vehicles, where occupants are expected to frequently engage in non-driving-related activities and will expect high comfort levels. Hence, enhancing seat design to mitigate WBV is essential for improving ride comfort across vehicle types. Therefore, this study, which primarily addresses vertical accelerations, optimized an existing seat suspension (K-Seat) and subjectively assessed discomfort using 24 participants (13 males and 11 females) exposed to a 29-minute driving session. The experiment was conducted with a conventional Toyota Yaris seat in a driving simulator, where a K-Seat model was used to emulate the effect of the seat suspension. Thus we evaluated the K-Seat, which has shown great promise for attenuating low-frequency vibrations; however, it had never been tested on human participants. The results show an overall reduction of 50% in reported motion sickness using the motion illness symptoms classification scale (MISC). Subjective discomfort was also alleviated for head and upper back. In addition, perceived discomfort was analyzed based on gender, illustrating a greater effectiveness of the K-Seat in enhancing lower neck comfort for females than for males.

The security of Automated Vehicles (AVs) is an important emerging area of research in traffic safety. Methods have been published and evaluated in experimental vehicles to secure safe AV control in the presence of attacks, but human motion comfort is rarely investigated in such studies. In this paper, we present an innovative optimal-coupling-observer-based framework that rejects the impact of bounded sensor attacks in a network of connected and automated vehicles from safety and comfort point of view. We demonstrate its performance in car following with cooperative adaptive cruise control for platoons with redundant distance and velocity sensors. The error dynamics are formulated as a Linear Time Variant (LTV) system, resulting in complex stability conditions that are investigated using a Linear Matrix Inequality (LMI) approach guaranteeing global asymptotic stability. We prove the capability of the framework to secure occupants’ safety and comfort in the presence of bounded attacks. In the onset of attack, the framework rapidly detects attacked sensors and switches to the most reliable observer eliminating attacked sensors, even with modest attack magnitudes. Without our proposed method, severe (but bounded) attacks result in collisions and major discomfort. With our method, attacks had negligible effects on motion comfort evaluated using ISO-2631 Ride Comfort and Motion Sickness indexes. The results pave the path to bring comfort to the forefront of AVs security.

Transportation and mobility are experiencing a significant transformation the recent years, which is evident in road (vehicles and bicycles) and rail vehicles. This transformation includes the introduction of automated vehicles (AVs), the increase of active transportation modes (e.g. cycling and walking) and the extended use of trains for commuting to work or travelling. However, despite this great transition, there are significant challenges that can hamper the wide use of these transport means, with comfort being one of them. In this paper, we explore physical comfort in these transport modes, examining ride comfort and motion sickness definitions and assessment, environmental influences, occupant postures, human body dynamics, and postural control strategies for adapting to motion. We conclude that while established comfort guidelines exist for conventional vehicles, substantial gaps persist in understanding and evaluating comfort in emerging modes like bicycles and automated vehicles with varied seating. Further research into modelling human body dynamics and the central nervous system's role in postural control, especially for cyclists and non-conventional postures, is essential for designing future transportation systems that prioritise comfort and health.

Ensuring safety remains one of the biggest challenges for the widespread adoption of automated vehicles (AVs). Remote operation of AVs is a promising approach to address this, allowing remote operators to intervene when AVs encounter edge cases. However, remote operators are out-of-the-loop from the conventional driver in vehicle environment interaction, impacting their situation awareness and ability to safely control or assist the vehicle. In the scenario of remote driving, this is more evident since multimodal feedback is required to replicate the conventional driver-vehicle environment-interaction. In addition to visual and auditory modalities, motion feedback has been proposed as a way to bridge the gap between remote driving and in-vehicle driving. However, since motion feedback is cost-intensive, it might hinder rapid upscaling of remote driving systems. Thus, this study evaluated whether motion feedback adds value to driving performance and experience of the remote operator in low-velocity scenarios. Driving performance and experience were assessed and compared using objective and subjective metrics in three conditions (in-vehicle driving, and remote driving with and without motion feedback). The findings show that in remote driving, motion feedback fails to provide significant improvements. When compared to in-vehicle driving, remote driving performance and experience remain significantly worse. This suggests that motion feedback, in its current form, is redundant in low-velocity scenarios and that a simplified Remote Driving Station (RDS) may be sufficient in these scenarios. Future work should optimize simplified RDS designs, enhance feedback and human-machine interfaces and explore different driving scenarios for safe and efficient remote driving.

This study highlights the challenge of motion sickness (MS) in autonomous vehicles (AVs), providing a comprehensive review of assessing, predicting, and preventing this issue with a special focus on vehicle dynamics and control-based approaches. Unlike previous studies, this review bridges the gap between MS prediction models and vehicle dynamics-based mitigation strategies by presenting an integrated perspective. Effective mitigation requires accurate and reliable prediction. In this context, motion-based prediction approaches, recognised for their practicality, cost-effectiveness, and promising results, are examined in detail with particular focus on ISO-based methods and sensory conflict theory-based models. The importance of identifying MS triggers and validating these models experimentally is also emphasised, alongside recent trends in customised approaches addressing individual variability in MS susceptibility. The study then investigates mitigation strategies centred on vehicle dynamics and control systems, due to their potential for directly controlling motion triggers, calling for tailored and integrated approaches. Furthermore, the critical role of trajectory planning and tracking algorithms in mitigating MS is reviewed, emphasising their potential through optimal control and the incorporation of MS metrics into cost functions. Additionally, integrating trajectory planning with active chassis systems is identified as a promising direction for reducing MS. The study concludes by underscoring the importance of optimised, personalised, integrated and connected vehicle dynamics and control-based methods to effectively mitigate MS in AVs. Finally, a future horizons approach, supported by a vision roadmap, is introduced as a means to address current challenges, define research directions, and ultimately advance the adoption of AVs with minimum MS.

We present a vehicle system capable of navigating safely and efficiently around Vulnerable Road Users (VRUs), such as pedestrians and cyclists. The system comprises key modules for environment perception, localization and mapping, motion planning, and control, integrated into a prototype vehicle. A key innovation is a motion planner based on Topology-driven Model Predictive Control (T-MPC). The guidance layer generates multiple trajectories in parallel, each representing a distinct strategy for obstacle avoidance or non-passing. The underlying trajectory optimization constrains the joint probability of collision with VRUs under generic uncertainties. To address extraordinary situations ('edge cases') that go beyond the autonomous capabilities - such as construction zones or encounters with emergency responders - the system includes an option for remote human operation, supported by visual and haptic guidance. In simulation, our motion planner outperforms three baseline approaches in terms of safety and efficiency. We also demonstrate the full system in prototype vehicle tests on a closed track, both in autonomous and remotely operated modes.

The ability to engage in other activities during the ride is considered by consumers as one of the key reasons for the adoption of automated vehicles. However, engagement in non-driving activities will provoke occupants’ motion sickness, deteriorating their overall comfort and thereby risking acceptance of automated driving. Therefore, it is critical to extend our understanding of motion sickness and unravel the modulating factors that affect it through experiments with participants. Currently, most experiments are conducted on public roads (realistic but not reproducible) or test tracks (feasible with prototype automated vehicles). This research study develops a method to design an optimal path and speed reference to accurately replicate on-road motion sickness exposure on a small test track. The method uses model predictive control to replicate the longitudinal and lateral accelerations collected from on-road drives on a test track of 70 m by 175 m. A within-subject experiment (47 participants) was conducted comparing the occupants’ motion sickness occurrence in test-track and on-road conditions, with the conditions being cross-randomized. The results illustrate that the subjective (reported) motion sickness is well reproduced with an insignificant reduction on the track. Meanwhile, there is an overall correspondence of individual sickness levels between on-road and test-track. This paves the path for the employment of our method for a simpler, safer and more replicable assessment of motion sickness.

A plausible explanation about the acquisition and realization of beliefs by the central nervous system (CNS) when issuing control actions to counteract external perturbations, is to employ mechanisms aiming to minimize sensory conflict and muscle effort while maintaining biomechanical stability. However, existing head–neck postural control models fail to explicitly integrate this plausible CNS objective within their stabilization mechanisms. This study proposes a novel Model Predictive Control (MPC)-based framework to replicate CNS postural stabilization by incorporating the minimization of sensory conflict as a primary control objective through the MPC cost function. The MPC is integrated in a simplified biomechanical head–neck structure, using a prediction model and sensory feedback to optimize control actions over a finite time horizon within biomechanical constraints. Two human experiments measuring head motion with unpredictable seat and trunk perturbations were used to evaluate and validate different configurations of sensory feedback pathways. During anterior–posterior translational trunk perturbations, the results illustrated that the configuration with vestibular feedback improved head position prediction while muscle effort and partial somatosensory feedback alone, achieved superior results in head pitch prediction. Meanwhile, muscle effort and partial somatosensory feedback were sufficient to stabilize the head during trunk rotational (pitch) perturbations. Finally, a multi-scenario optimization demonstrated that a single set of MPC weights could generalize stabilization across both perturbation types. The results demonstrate the effectiveness of MPC in replicating CNS-inspired postural adjustments, indicating that controlling a simplified biomechanical head–neck model provides a computationally efficient and accurate alternative to complex multi-segment approaches.

Existing models of vibration transmission through the seated human body are primarily two-dimensional, focusing on the mid-sagittal plane and in-plane excitation. However, these models have limitations when the human body is subjected to vibrations in the mid-coronal plane. Three-dimensional (3D) human models have been primarily developed for impact analysis. Recently, we showed that such a 3D active human model can also predict vibration transmission. However, existing 3D body models suffer from excessive computational time requirements due to their complexity. To effectively analyze motion comfort, this research presents a 3D computationally efficient human model (EHM), running faster than real-time, with scope for real-time vehicle and seat motion control to enhance comfort. The EHM is developed by considering various combinations of body segments and joint degrees of freedom, interacting with multibody (MB) and finite element (FE) seat compliance models. Postural stabilization parameters are estimated using an optimization process based on experimental frequency-dependent gain responses for different postures (erect/slouched) and backrest support (low/high) conditions. The model combines two postural control mechanisms: 1) joint angle control capturing reflexive and intrinsic stabilization for each degree of freedom with PID controllers, including integration to eliminate drift, and 2) head-in-space control minimizing 3D head rotation. Interaction with a compliant seat was modeled using deformable finite elements and multibody contact models. Results showed the importance of modeling both compressive and shear deformation of the seat and the human body. Traditional stick-slip multibody contact failed to reproduce seat-to-human vibration transmission. Combining efficient body modeling principles, innovative postural adaptation techniques, and advanced seat contact strategies, this study lays a robust foundation for predicting and optimizing motion comfort.

Remote driving plays an essential role in coordinating automated vehicles in some challenging situations. Due to the changed driving environment, the experiences and behaviors of remote drivers would undergo some changes compared to conventional drivers. To study this, a continuous real-life and remote driving experiment is conducted under different driving conditions. In addition, the effect of steering force feedback (SFF) on the driving experience is also investigated. In order to achieve this, three types of SFF modes are compared. According to the results, no SFF significantly worsens the driving experience in both remote and real-life driving. Additionally, less force and returnability on steering wheel are needed in remote driving, and the steering force amplitude appears to influence the steering velocity of remote drivers. Furthermore, there is an increase in lane following deviation during remote driving. Remote drivers are also prone to driving at lower speeds and have a higher steering reversal rate. They also give larger steering angle inputs when crossing the cones in a slalom manoeuvre and cause the car to experience larger lateral acceleration. These findings provide indications on how to design SFF and how driving behavior and experience change in remote driving.

In this paper, a path-tracking controller is developed for an autonomous vehicle with All-Wheel-Steering (AWS) capability. Based on nonlinear model predictive control, the proposed controller is formulated in a way that allows the manipulation of vehicle’s attitude during path-tracking. With high-fidelity vehicle dynamics simulation, the controller is examined at various velocities up to the limit handling condition. Comparison is carried out in the aspects of path-tracking, ride comfort and motion sickness, between the implementation with a constant yaw angle reference (referred to as crab steering) and the nominal steering behaviour for negotiating the same path. The ride comfort metric suggested by ISO-2631 is used to capture the benefits of the crab steering approach against the nominal case, and the simulation results reveal that crab steering is able to enhance the ride comfort for AWS vehicles in double lane-change and slalom manoeuvres.

Teleoperation is considered as a viable option to control fully automated vehicles (AVs) of Level 4 and 5 in special conditions. However, by bringing the remote drivers in the loop, their driving experience should be realistic to secure safe and comfortable remote control. Therefore, the remote control tower should be designed such that remote drivers receive high quality cues regarding the vehicle state and the driving environment. In this direction, the steering feedback could be manipulated to provide feedback to the remote drivers regarding how the vehicle reacts to their commands. However, until now, it is unclear how the remote drivers' steering feel could impact occupant's motion comfort. This paper focuses on exploring how the driver feel in remote (RD) and normal driving (ND) are related with occupants' motion comfort. More specifically, different types of steering feedback controllers are applied in (a) the steering system of a Research Concept Vehicle-model E (RCV-E) and (b) the steering system of a remote control tower. An experiment was performed to assess driver feel when the RCV-E is normally and remotely driven. Subjective assessment and objective metrics are employed to assess drivers' feel and occupants' motion comfort in both remote and normal driving scenarios. The results illustrate that motion sickness and ride comfort are dominated by steering velocity variations in remote driving, while throttle input variations dominate in normal driving. The results demonstrate that motion sickness and steering velocity increase both around 25% from normal to remote driving.

Head motion is a key determinant of motion comfort and differs substantially from seat motion due to seat and body compliance and dynamic postural stabilization. This paper compares different human body model fidelities to transmit seat accelerations to the head for the assessment of motion comfort through simulations. Six-degree of freedom dynamics were analyzed using frequency response functions derived from an advanced human model (AHM), a computationally efficient human model (EHM) and experimental studies. Simulations of dynamic driving show that human models strongly affected the predicted ride comfort (increased up to a factor 3). Furthermore, they modestly affected sickness using the available filters from the literature and ISO-2631 (increased up to 30%), but more strongly affected sickness predicted by the subjective vertical conflict (SVC) model (increased up to 70%).

Effective emission control technologies and eco-friendly propulsion systems have been developed to decrease exhaust particle emissions. However, more work must be conducted on non-exhaust traffic-related sources such as tyre wear. The advent of automated vehicles (AVs) enables researchers and automotive manufacturers to consider ways to further decrease tyre wear, as vehicles will be controlled by the system rather than by the driver. In this direction, this work presents the formulation of an optimal control problem for the trajectory optimisation of automated articulated vehicles for tyre wear minimisation. The optimum velocity profile is sought for a predefined road path from a specific starting point to a final one to minimise tyre wear in fixed time cases. Specific boundaries and constraints are applied to the problem to ensure the vehicle’s stability and the feasibility of the solution. According to the results, a small increase in the journey time leads to a significant decrease in the mass loss due to tyre wear. The employment of articulated vehicles with low powertrain capabilities leads to greater tyre wear, while excessive increases in powertrain capabilities are not required. The conclusions pave the way for AV researchers and manufacturers to consider tyre wear in their control modules and come closer to the zero-emission goal.

In the transition from partial to high automation, occupants will no longer be actively involved in driving. This will allow the use of travel time for work or leisure, where high comfort levels preventing motion sickness are required. In this paper, an optimal trajectory planning algorithm is presented in order to minimise motion sickness in automated vehicles. A predefined path is provided as an input to the algorithm, to generate an optimal path with limited lateral deviation and the corresponding optimal velocity profile, for the minimisation of motion sickness. An optimal control problem is formulated with a cost function combining both motion sickness and travel time. For a sickening curvy road, the algorithm reduced the motion sickness dose value (MSDV) up to 52% depending on the allowed lateral deviation and the weighting on travel time. The efficacy of the proposed algorithm has been evaluated via human-in-the-loop experiments using a moving-base driving simulator. Motion cueing parameters were selected to optimally transmit the sickening stimuli resulting in close to full vibration transmission above 0.2 Hz. During the experiment, the participants were asked to rate their experience based on the standard MIsery SCore ratings. According to these, sickness levels were reduced on average by 65% with reduced motion sickness in all 16 participants.

The goal of this paper is to contribute to the accurate prediction of human body motion by proposing a novel head-neck model for dynamic driving scenarios with complex vehicle motions. While automated vehicles are considered a potential solution to several transportation issues, there are still significant challenges that need to be addressed, including fundamental questions regarding motion comfort and postural stability. Existing standards fail to accurately describe motion comfort, and current head-neck models have limitations, such as their inability to accurately capture human head responses to dynamic perturbations and lack of adaptability to different perturbations, amplitudes, and individual characteristics. To address these challenges, the authors propose a 3D double inverted pendulum model (DIPM) with a total of 6 degrees of freedom (DoF) as an approximation of head-neck system. The proposed model uses Model Predictive Control (MPC) to derive optimal control inputs for head-neck stabilization. The study validates the proposed model against experimental data of anterior-posterior seat translation and rotation from the literature. The results indicate that the model fitted the experimental data with a variance accounted for 82.80 % in translation and 73.15 % in rotation (pitch). The proposed model paves the path for the accurate assessment of occupants’ postural stability in automated vehicles.

Due to the complexity of the human body and its neuromuscular stabilization, it has been challenging to efficiently and accurately predict human motion and capture posture while being driven. Existing simple models of the seated human body are mostly two-dimensional and developed in the mid-sagittal plane exposed to in-plane excitation. Such models capture fore-aft and vertical motion but not the more complex 3D motions due to lateral loading. Advanced 3D full body active human models (AHMs), such as in MADYMO, can be used for comfort analysis and to investigate how vibrations influence the human body while being driven. However, such AHMs are very time-consuming due to their complexity. To effectively analyze motion comfort, a computationally efficient and accurate three dimensional (3D) human model, which runs faster than real time, is presented. The model's postural stabilization parameters are tuned using available 3D vibration data for head, trunk and pelvis translation and rotation. A comparison between AHM and EHM is conducted regarding human body kinematics. According to the results, the EHM model configuration with two neck joints, two torso bending joints, and a spinal compression joint accurately predicts body kinematics.

Active muscles are crucial for maintaining postural stability when seated in a moving vehicle. Advanced active 3D non-linear full body models have been developed for impact and comfort simulation, including large numbers of individual muscle elements, and detailed non-linear models of the joint structures. While such models have an apparent potential to provide insight into postural stabilization, they are computationally demanding, making them less practical in particular for driving comfort where long time periods are to be studied. In vibrational comfort and in general biomechanical research, linearized models are effectively used. This paper evaluates the effectiveness of simplified 3D full-body human models to capture comfort provoked by whole-body vibrations. An efficient seated human body model is developed and validated using experimental data. We evaluate the required complexity in terms of joints and degrees of freedom for the spine, and explore how well linear spring-damper models can approximate reflexive postural stabilization. Results indicate that linear stiffness and damping models can well capture the human response. However, the results are improved by adding proportional integral derivative (PID) and head-in-space (HIS) controllers to maintain the defined initial body posture. The integrator is shown to be essential to prevent drift from the defined posture. The joint angular relative displacement is used as the input reference to each PID controller. With this model, a faster than real-time solution is obtained when used with a simple seat model. The paper also discusses the advantages and disadvantages of various models and provides insight into which models are more appropriate for motion comfort analysis. For designers and researchers in the automotive and seating industries, the findings given in this paper provide useful insights that will help them improve the comfort and safety of both vehicle occupants and seats.