Realtime Technologies News

  Human factors research is keenly interested in what’s happening in the brain of distracted drivers while texting or using GPS apps. Roughly 4,000 people are killed each year by distracted driving and another 390,000 injured. By some estimates, one-quarter of all U.S. car accidents are caused by someone texting and driving. Previous research has … Continued

  In a previous post, we discussed the three most widely recognized theories about simulation sickness (and their scenario design implications) in detail. In general, these older understandings of what causes simulation sickness tend to argue that we must remove or attenuate motion signals in our simulations to prevent discomfort. The “Rest-Frame Hypothesis” is a … Continued

  Simulator sickness can complicate simulation-based driving research and negatively affect the validity of that research. When participants are uncomfortable or nauseous, they will be distracted from tasks, preoccupied with their discomfort. They may (consciously or unconsciously) avoid tasks or perform poorly to avoid further irritation. Our Realtime Technologies lead engineer and general manager, Heather … Continued

  Driver simulation is a remarkably powerful research tool. It allows us to safely and affordably explore how people handle potentially deadly situations. We can create scenarios (e.g., poor visibility, impaired driving, malfunctioning ADAS systems) that would be logistically impossible (as well as unethical) to ask study participants to endure in real life. So it’s … Continued

  A recent driving and traffic simulation study from the University of Minnesota suggests several cost-effective ways to address rural highway safety at the intersection The rural road safety crisis is invisible to many Americans. Only about 20 percent of the US population lives in rural areas, and only about one-third of all miles driven … Continued

  Ann Arbor, Michigan – April 14, 2020 – Arotech’s Training and Simulation Division’s (ATSD) Realtime Technologies (RTI) expands customer support allowing customers to remain engaged and productive during the COVID-19 pandemic. RTI’s managers and engineers, many working remotely themselves, architected a pathway for its customers to use the RTI software suite while access to … Continued

Ann Arbor, Michigan – February 10, 2020 – Arotech Corporation’s Training and Simulation Division (ATSD) has acquired Inter-costal Electronics, Inc. (ICE), a privately-owned corporation headquartered in Mesa, AZ. For over 30 years, ICE has been a leading provider of live training and test instrumentation systems. ICE designs, manufactures, and supports complex instrumentation ecosystems supporting strategic … Continued

  Last year a U.S. auto manufacturer announced a startling leap forward in in-vehicle experience: Ordering Donuts via dashboard while driving As a user experience, it was not an immediate success. Probably the warmest review came from Daniel Howley, the technology editor at Yahoo! Finance: “[this] is a nice option, but it feels like a … Continued

  On a single day in mid-July major headlines painted seemingly mutually exclusive pictures of the state of autonomous vehicles. Tesla announced plans to launch “full self-driving” features on its existing fleet of 100,000+ vehicles. This would allow “automatic driving on city streets” within the year.  That same day, long-established automakers (including Ford and VW) … Continued

  The discussion around autonomous vehicles (AVs) is chronically fixated on two areas of technology: Sensors and AI algorithms Even when simulator technology enters the conversation, we tend to focus on advances in using simulation to train AIs. Tesla claims that their edge in developing autonomous vehicle AIs—and rolling out “Automatic driving on city streets” … Continued