Human-Computer Interaction

Rider in the Loop Dynamic Motorcycle Simulator: An Instrumentation Strategy Focused on Human Acceptability

Publié le - Electronics

Auteurs : Pauline Michel, Samir Bouaziz, Flavien Delgehier, Stéphane Espie

Human-in-the-loop driving simulation aims to create the illusion of driving by stimulating the driver’s sensory systems in as realistic conditions as possible. However, driving simulators can only produce a subset of the sensory stimuli that would be available in a real driving situation, depending on the degree of refinement of their design. This subset must be carefully chosen because it is crucial for human acceptability. Our focus is the design of a physical dynamic (i.e., motion-based) motorcycle-riding simulator. For its instrumentation, we focused on the rider acceptability of all sub-systems and the simulator as a whole. The significance of our work lies in this particular approach; the acceptability of the riding illusion for the rider is critical for the validity of any results acquired using a simulator. In this article, we detail the design of the hardware/software architecture of our simulator under this constraint; sensors, actuators, and dataflows allow us to (1) capture the rider’s actions in real-time; (2) render the motorcycle’s behavior to the rider; and (3) measure and study rider/simulated motorcycle interactions. We believe our methodology could be adopted by future designers of motorcycle-riding simulators and other human-in-the-loop simulators to improve their rendering (including motion) quality and acceptability.