Study on Haptic Maneuver Guidance by Periodic Knocks on Accelerator Pedal

This study proposes a method for presenting maneuver request information of accelerator pedal to a driver via the accelerator pedal itself. By applying periodic force like vibration on an accelerator pedal, information is transferred to the driver without displacing the accelerator pedal. In this study, the authors focus on a saw-tooth wave as the periodic force. When the saw-tooth-waved force is applied on the accelerator pedal, a human driver feels as if the accelerator pedal is knocked by someone periodically. In addition, information about the quantity of requested maneuver can be transferred by the amplitude of the saw-tooth wave. Based on these facts, the saw-tooth wave is modified and optimized empirically with ten human drivers so that the information of direction is transferred most reliably. In addition, the relationship between the amplitude of the saw-tooth wave and requested quantity of the pedal maneuver that the drivers feel is formulated. Then, the pedal maneuver guidance system is proposed using the force application on accelerator pedal with the optimized saw-tooth wave. The proposed system is examined through experiments. As a result, it is indicated that the proposed information presentation method is effective.