Neuromuscular analysis of haptic gas pedal feedback during car following (2006)

Vdriving condition with visual feedback VH driving condition with visual and haptic feedback CHAPTER 1 The Price of MobilityThey're funny things, Accidents.You never have them till you're having them.-EeyoreThe crash of Nicolas-Joseph Cugnot's steam-powered automobile into a brick wall marked the first automobile accident in 1771.Almost a century later, in Ireland, the first automobile fatality was reported.During the 20th century, with the development of the internal combustion engine, vehicle mass-production and an exponential increase in the need for mobility, cars have become indispensable, and accidents seemingly inevitable.Today, approximately 1.4 million road accidents 1 occur every year in Europe alone, leaving 1.7 million people injured, and 40 thousand people killed (Commission of European Communities, 2001).When expressed in monetary terms the direct and indirect costs of all road accidents in Europe have been estimated at 160 billion euro.Although there have been many improvements in traffic safety (in the last 30 years traffic volume has tripled, while road deaths have halved), the price of our mobility is still very high. Improving Driving Safety and ComfortThe best car safety device is a rear-view mirror with a cop in it.-Dudley Moore (actor, musician) Governmental organizations continuously aim to improve driving safety by a variety of measures: improvements in road infrastructure, encouraging drivers to drive more responsibly through campaigns and legislation (use seat belts, don't speed, don't drink and drive, don't use cellphones), and by stimulating the development of safer vehicles.Over the past years, the automotive industry has invented many systems that improve car safety.In the past, the main direction of innovation has been 'passive vehicle safety' systems, which aim to reduce the effect of a collision for all those involved.Safety belts, crumple zones, cage constructions and airbags all have substantially contributed to increased passive safety.Another way to improve safety is use 'active safety' that aim to reduce the chance of an accident occurring in the first place.Active safety systems have been designed to increase detection (brake lights and other lights) and vehicle control (anti-lock braking systems (ABS), traction control, electronic stability control).Apart from safety issues, the automotive industry always has to consider the customer's comfort and driving pleasure.Sound systems, cell phones, on-board navigation and even entertainment systems have become increasingly more common.In some cases such systems do not only provide comfort or pleasure to drivers, but may also distract them from their primary task: interacting safely with the road and other road users (Srinivasan and Jovanis, 1997).Driver inattention is one of the main causes of traffic accidents (Knipling et al., 1993), and recent research has focused on a new class CHAPTER 1 have studied practical and fundamental issues of ADAS, starting with the Prometheus project in 1986, followed shortly after by DRIVE (Dedicated Road Infrastructure for Vehicle safety in Europe).One of the largest projects in the DRIVE program was the GIDS (Generic Intelligent Driver Support) project, which already explored the use of a haptic 2 gas pedal.See Michon, 1993 for more information.More recent projects (e.g., PROS-PER and TRAIL) investigated longitudinal and lateral assistance and provided a lot of insight in their impact on behavioral aspects such as adaptation and acceptance.The research efforts of the automotive industry and governmental organizations have led to several relatively well-known examples of ADAS, of which some will be discussed briefly here.The list is far from complete, but will rather serve to illustrate some of the issues, limitations and beneficial effects associated with currently available ADAS.ADAS for the Navigation Task Navigation support systems belong to a class of ADAS usually called In-Vehicle Information Systems (IVIS).They aid drivers in their route planning by providing information and suggestions.The system provides support at a non-critical, strategical level.However, literature has reported they may be a source of distraction for tactical and operational tasks (Srinivasan and Jovanis, 1997). ADAS for the Speed Control TaskCruise Control is one of the best known ADAS, and is widely available on the market through a variety of car manufacturers.Cruise Control automates the vehicle's speed control, a longitudinal, non-critical task at the operational level.The system is designed to automatically maintain a constant speed, which the driver can set and overrule.Supporting speed control (as opposed to automating it) has also been investigated in a number of projects.In the GIDS project a continuous counter-force was applied to the gas pedal, proportional to the deviation from a target speed, reducing the speed errors compared with unsupported driving or feedback through other modalities (Godthelp and Schumann, 1993;Verwey et al., 1993).In the PROSPER project a gas pedal was developed that produces a counter force and reduces fuel injection into the engine whenever the driver exceeds a certain speed limit.Prototypes were evaluated on a large scale on Swedish roads and studied with respect to speed, traffic safety, driver behaviour and acceptance.The variance of speed decreased (Hjlmdahl et al., 2002) which was hypothesized to positively impact traffic safety (Vrhelyi, 2002).ADAS for the Car-following Task Assisting free speed control may have a positive effect on traffic flow, but it will not assist in the interaction with other road users.To that effect, ADAS's have been developed that measure distance and relative velocity to lead vehicles with a radar, and when the separation 3 becomes too small either act independently (task automated by ADAS), or inform the driver to act (task supported by ADAS). Measuring neuromuscular dynamicsThe neuromuscular mechanisms described in the previous section all act together during motion control, showing a combined behaviour that has elastic, viscous and inertial properties.Many experimental studies (Abbink et al., 2004a;De Vlugt, 2004;Schouten, 2004), have shown that these properties can be adapted through changes in muscle co-contraction and reflexive activity.A relatively common method of describing neuro-