Citation

Olsen RA. Highw. Res. Rec. 1973; 464: 30-34.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1973, National Research Council (U.S.A.), Highway Research Board)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

A large portion of accidents involve some type of skidding, yet most drivers lack knowledge of the procedures for avoiding skids or for bringing a skidding vehicle under control. The vehicle skid simulator being developed will provide a laboratory model of a skidding automobile in which the driver can experience the visual inputs and the yaw motions and learn how best to use the brake pedal, accelerator, and steering wheel to control his vehicle. The simulator rotates about a pivot point at the center of gravity of the skidding vehicle. The driver is placed in a potential skidding situation and told to keep the vehicle centered in a simulated lane. Manipulations of the controls are converted into voltages by transducers and fed into an analog computer programmed to represent the yaw responses of an actual automobile on various types of surfaces. The computed heading is compared to the actual heading, and the error signal is fed into a drive system that rotates the mock vehicle in the appropriate direction. Where friction demands are excessive for the simulated surface, speed, and tire conditions, a skid will be initiated. The simulator will be used for research to define the characteristics of control and skidding and to determine the potential for skid training. It will also be useful for studying some human- factors aspects of motion and acceleration effects on perception. /author/

Language: en

Keywords

ACCIDENT PREVENTION; AUTOMOBILE DRIVERS; PERSONNEL TRAINING