Driving in Virtual Reality: Investigations in Effects of Latency and Level of Virtuality

Abstract

When developing new active safety systems or improving existing systems, conducting performance evaluations is necessary. By performing these evaluations during early development stages, potential problems can be identified and mitigated before the system moves into the production phase.Testing active safety systems can be difficult since the characteristic scenarios may have complex interactions. Using real vehicles for performing these types of scenarios is difficult, expensive, and potentially dangerous. Alternative methods, such as using inflatable targets, scale models, computer simulations or driving simulators, also suffer from drawbacks. Consequently, using virtual reality as an alternative to the traditional methods has been proposed. In this case, a real vehicle is driven while wearing a head-mounted display that presents the scenario to the driver.This research aims to investigate the potential of such technology. Specifically, this work investigates how the chosen technology affects the driver. This investigation has been conducted through a literature review. A test platform was constructed, and two user studies using normal drivers were performed. The first study focused on the effects of visual time delays on driver behavior. This study revealed that lateral behavior changes with added time delays, whereas longitudinal behavior appears unaffected. The second study investigated how driver behavior is affected by different modes of virtuality. This study demonstrated that drivers perceived mixed reality as more difficult than virtual reality.The main contribution of this work is the detailed understanding of how time delays and different modes of virtuality affect drivers. This is important knowledge for selecting which scenarios are suitable for evaluation using virtual reality. Keywords PapersThe following four appended papers are arranged in chronological order of publication and will be referred to by their Roman numerals. All papers are printed in their original published state with the exception of minor errata and changes in text and figure layout in order to maintain consistency throughout the thesis. In papers [I], [II], [III] and [IV], the first author is the main author, responsible for the work presented, with additional support from the co-authors. A short summary of each paper can be found in chapter 4.[I] Björn Blissing, Fredrik Bruzelius, and Johan Ölvander." [VIII] Lars Eriksson, Lisa Palmqvist, Jonas Andersson Hultgren, Björn Blissing, and Steven Nordin. "Performance and presence with head-movement produced motion parallax in simulated driving".

Are Head-mounted Displays Really Not Suitable for Driving Simulation? A Comparison with a Screen-Based Simulator

“…200°in the real world [23]), potentially reducing optic flow, while peripheral information is available with other displays. We also found that many research papers on HMDs are comparatively old or used low-fidelity HMDs, which is often associated with lower resolution [8], contrast, FOV, etc. Thus, the differences found between HMDs and other displays may also be attributed to other hardware properties.…”

“…HMDs offer a cheap solution as all elements of a real vehicle can be displayed virtually, hence no physical mockup is required. [8] proposed that 40 % of the studies could be conducted using HMDs. They mention as a benefit that HMDs are, at least partially, able to provide binocular depth cues.…”

Extensions for Distributed Moving Base Driving Simulators

“…A driving simulator commonly has a design in between these extremes. Vehicle hardware is also commonly included to various degrees, ranging from simple driver controls to a complete car where techniques such as augmented reality may be explored (Blissing 2016). The focus in this work are human drivers in a high fidelity moving base driving simulator.…”

Virtuality as a precondition and necessity for the mankind development

“…When virtual objects are added to the real world, mainly is used the term "augmented reality" (AR). A typical example of AR is to add annotations to objects in the real world, but it can also be to add a virtual object to the real world, such as a virtual teapot placed on a real table or a virtual vehicle in a real traffic environment or a virtual singer from the past on a stage that stands next to a modern star (Blissing, 2016). On this continuum is also (more uncommon) augmented virtuality (AV), which means to add real objects to an otherwise virtual world.…”