The Importance of Yaw Motion Feedback in Driving Simulators

Paper in proceeding, 2016

In hexapod based driving simulator, utilizing one degree of freedom limits the potential in others. Taking into account that improper representation of the yaw motion in the driving simulator can be more harmful then beneficial in terms of the simulator’s fidelity, the influence of the yaw component on the driver’s motion perception in the driving simulator was studied. An experiment was conducted that included regular driving on the rural road and the light car crash on the T-junction. All 17 test subjects were divided into 2 groups – one group had yaw feedback in the motion cueing, the second did not. The difference in the vehicle states and driver’s subjective opinion between the group with and without yaw component in the motion feedback was analyzed. It was concluded that the absence of the way component brings the difference, sometimes significant, to the driver’s behavior and accordingly – to the motion perception.