The Daimler-Benz Driving Simulator–Presentation of Selected Experiments

Set-up and results of several tests at the Daimler-Benz driving simulator will be described. The whole application spectrum of the simulator from testing new car components to studies of driver behavior in specific traffic situations is covered. The tests are in particular:

1. 1.
   Investigations about control algorithms for four-wheel steering in cars and microprocessor controlled power steering for trucks. Determination of which malfunctions of the system can be tolerated for the human driver in safety critical driving situations.
2. 2.
   Driver behavior under stress on icy roads in cars equipped with rear-wheel drive, four-wheel drive and 4MATIC (automatically switched four-wheel drive)
3. 3.
   Experiments concerning voice recognition in the car consisting of the following subtests:
   • determination of a suitable command vocabulary
   • comparison of pushbutton control and voice input in different accident-prone situations
   • validation of the simulator environment by repeating a subset of the tests in a real environment
4. 4.
   A study on driver control characteristics. Standard experiments known from literature were repeated and their simple and controllable environment was gradually replaced by the complete simulation of the driver's environment.
5. 5.
   Experiments on how overtaking behavior of drivers depends on range of vision, speed and width of the road. Investigation about a car based information device to support the decision to overtake.