Simulation and Measurement of Driver Vehicle Handling Performance

Test series were run on subjects in a motor vehicle simulator and in actual motor vehicles. The test objective was to study the correlations among the subjective evaluation of vehicle handling qualities, test measurements, and various characteristics. Although the data presented in this paper should be considered only a first step, the comparison of simulator results with road test results yielded good data correlation. It was found in both cases that the vehicle response rate (for example, yaw angle velocity) on a sudden steering angle step input exerts much greater influence on the judgment and the performance of the test subject than does, for instance, vehicle damping.