S. Barendswaard
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10 records found
1
Dual-axis manual control
Performance degradation, axis asymmetry, crossfeed, and intermittency
Vehicle control tasks require simultaneous control of multiple degrees-of-freedom. Most multi-axis human-control modeling is limited to the modeling of multiple fully independent single axes. This paper contributes to the understanding of multi-axis control behavior and draws a more realistic and complete picture of dual-axis manual control. A human-in-the-loop experiment was performed to study four distinctive phenomena that can occur in multi-axis control: performance degradation, axis asymmetry, crossfeed, and intermittency. In a simulator, three conditions were tested in the presence and absence of physical motion: the full dual-axis control task, single-axis roll task, and single-axis pitch task. Controlled element dynamics, stick dynamics, and forcing functions were equal in all cases. Results show that performance is worse in dual-axis tasks. Performance in roll axis is consistently worse than pitch, thereby proving axis asymmetry. Physical motion improves the performance and stability of the system. The application of independent forcing function signals in both controlled axes resulted in the detection of crossfeed in dual-axis tasks from spectral analysis. Using a novel extended Fourier coefficient method, the identified crossfeed dynamics can explain up to 20% of the measured control inputs and improves modeling accuracy by up to 5%. Dual-axis control behavior is less accurately modeled with linear time-invariant models and is more intermittent.
Did you know that most drivers swing left before taking a right curve? In fact, this is a given for all race car drivers and a rule for efficient curve negotiation. This distinct way of approaching a curve is called prepositioning. In a recent study it is found that incorporating knowledge of this prepositioning phase is crucial for the reliability and acceptance of some trajectory-guiding advanced-driver-assistance-systems. Unfortunately, our understanding of prepositioning behaviour is still limited, with most driver models unable to account for this phenomenon. In an attempt to improve our understanding, the effects of changing velocity and road radius on prepositioning behaviour are studied experimentally in a fixed-base driving simulator. Twenty-four participants drove four conditions comprising two different fixed-speed velocities (50 and 80 km/h) and two different curve radii (204 and 350 m). The results show that the drivers' maximum prepositioning position significantly increases with increasing velocity and significantly decreases with increasing radius. With 88% of the runs exhibiting a significant displacement, i.e. larger than 0.05 m relative to a constant road bias. The findings suggest that drivers adjust their prepositioning behaviour to the Time-to-Line-Crossing (TLC) of the road environment, in an attempt to maximise TLC. Incorporating these findings in future driver modelling will bridge the gap between straight road and in-curve driving behaviour, thereby bolstering the descriptive capacity of these models.
When taking a curve, drivers follow their own unique trajectory. Most driver style classifiers in literature are based on inertial inputs, denoting whether a given driver is aggressive or calm. However, this does not give any indication of a drivers trajectory style, i.e. whether a driver is curve cutting. To fill this void, this paper introduces a novel rule based classifier that categorises seven different trajectory styles. The classifier is applied to data from a fixed-base driving simulator study in which 45 subjects drove on three roads, comprising three different velocities: 25, 50 and 80 km/h, with three corresponding radii: 20, 80 and 204 m. The results show that some classes are more prevalent than others, with biased outer curve negotiation performed by a majority of the subjects and with no drivers classified as centerline drivers. The proposed trajectory classifier is shown to exhibit high levels of consistency, with 93% of drivers exhibiting consistent trajectory classes for at least 66% of the right curves driven and 84% exhibits consistent trajectory classes for atleast 66% of the left curves driven. Where this consistency indicates a potential for generalising the classification results to other curves. Additionally, this classifier can be used to adapt trajectory-driven advanced driver assistance systems, thereby serving as an alternative to driver modelling.
A method to assess individualized driver models
Descriptiveness, identifiability and realism
This paper introduces a systematic assessment method which quantitatively assesses computational driver steering models with respect to their suitability for online identification of individual driver steering behaviour. This methodology is based on three criteria: (1) descriptiveness, the model's ability to capture different types of steering behaviour, (2) identifiability, the ability of the model for unique mapping between a steering behaviour and a parameter combination, and (3) realism, the parameter span resulting in realistic steering behaviour. The utility of the introduced assessment method is shown by analysing and comparing two driver models from literature which are based on the same high-level concept. Both models assume proportional control on a predicted lateral position, however one uses a linear prediction for lateral position and the other uses a nonlinear prediction. The proposed assessment method distinguishes between the performance of the models by showing that the nonlinear model outperforms the linear model in terms of descriptiveness (66% compared to 33% of the linear model), better inherent identifiability for steering angle (3.8 compared to 7.5), better inherent identifiability for lateral position (0.01 compared to 0.5), better curve-cutting experimental identifiability and a 2.72 times larger realistic parameter span allowing for more flexibility for parameter selection. This quantitative assessment method has successfully reflected the effect of merely altering the way the lateral position is predicted in two driver models. Thereby, this method can be used to give a fair assessment by giving a model an absolute classification that also allows for quantitative comparison with many more driver models.