Differences in driver behaviour between race and experienced drivers

Abstract

Safety is one of the major areas of concerns today in the field of automotive development. Different safety measures have and are being introduced in order to improve driver/passenger and pedestrian safety. Advanced driver assist systems (ADAS) are therefore becoming increasingly important in their role of reducing driver crash risk. A shortcoming of the ADAS systems is that the variability in drivers based on skill and experience is not taken into account and the system is often designed for average or worst case driver performance thereby compromising on the dynamic behaviour of the vehicle. This study focuses on understanding and quantifying the differences in drivers. This knowledge of driver differences can be helpful in designing an adaptive ADAS by introducing the driver into the control loop. The study investigates differences between race-car drivers and normal (experienced) drivers in a high-speed driving task. The study analyses simulator data for 17 drivers on the Mallory Park test circuit. The driving task required the participants to drive around the circuit to achieve the fastest lap times. Analysis showed that higher steering activity and differences in path strategy were the main reasons for lower lap-times shown by the expert race drivers compared to the non-expert drivers. Steering metrics like average steering rate, steering jerk showed higher values for the expert group and distance traveled around the corner showed a different path strategy adopted by the experts. Both groups showed improvement in performance based on lap-times across the different sessions. Thus the study shows that expert and non-expert drivers have different steering behaviour and path strategy, which can be attributed to differences in driving experience, vehicle dynamics knowledge and vehicle control skills.