Elon Musk and Bird scooters might grab the headlines, but the place that we’re truly breaking new ground in human mobility is with ADAS (advanced driver-assistance systems) and autonomous/semi-autonomous vehicles.

Realtime Technologies has decades of experience with human-in-the-loop simulation and modeling. This forms the foundation of the ADAS simulation software module for their new SimCreator DX driving simulation software suite.  

Called SimDriver, this add-on module allows for full longitudinal and lateral control of the subject or ownship vehicle.  It’s ideally suited for evaluating human interaction with automated vehicles in both city and freeway driving environments.  It’s especially adept at helping researchers explore human-machine interface issues like:

• transfer of control from automation to manual driving
• trust in automation
• usability of the automation interface in the car
• … even automation failures

Most importantly, SimDriver meshes seamlessly with the overarching SimCreator DX rapid simulation prototyping suite. You can develop full experiments and “test drive” new ideas without leaving the graphical development–but still retain all the precision power that comes with “going under the hood” and directly editing the underlying source code.

ADAS Research with Human-in-the-Loop Simulation

According to Heather Stoner, General Manager for Realtime Technologies, “By specifying the drivers around the ownship, you can create unique situations organically”–and capture how people react.

In designing SimDriver, Realtime looked beyond their decades spent working human-in-the-loop simulation and modeling for industry.  They worked with current clients, dove into existing research studies, and sifted through published literature on driver behavior to establish the fundamental characteristics of behavior behind the wheel.

Ultimately, Realtime identified 10 critical elements of driver behavior–and made it easy for researchers to tweak these and study how human drivers react.

Researchers can select a default profile or create their own, individually dialing in each element of driver behavior.  These profiles can be applied to a single vehicle, all ambient traffic, or a distribution of profiles across all vehicles represented by the simulation.

Most importantly, SimDriver is fully integrated into the SimCreator DX suite–where complete, complex driving scenarios can be developed in short order, without writing a line of code. Download this free quick-start guide now to learn more.