Assessing the Impact of Multi-variate Steering-rate Vehicle Control on Driver Performance in a Simulation Framework

When a driver turns a steering-wheel, he or she normally expects the vehicle\u27s steering system to communicate an equivalent amount of signal to the road-wheels. This relationship is linear and occurs regardless of the steering-wheel\u27s position within its rotational travel. The linear steering paradigm in passenger vehicles has gone largely unchanged since mass production of passenger vehicles began in 1901. However, as more electronically-controlled steering systems appear in conjunction with development of autonomous steering functions in vehicles, an opportunity to advance the existing steering paradigms arises. The following framework takes a human-factors approach toward examining and evaluating alternative steering systems by using Modeling and Simulation methods to track and score human performance. Present conventional steering systems apply a linear relationship between the steering-wheel and the road wheels of a vehicle. The rotational travel of the steering-wheel is 900° and requires two-and-a-half revolutions to travel from end-stop to opposite end-stop. The experimental steering system modeled and employed in this study applies a dynamic curve response to the steering input within a shorter, 225° rotational travel. Accommodation variances, based on vehicle speed and steering-wheel rotational position and acceleration, moderate the apparent steering input to augment a more-practical, effective steering rate. This novel model follows a paradigm supporting the full range of steering-wheel actuation without necessitating hand repositioning or the removal of the driver\u27s hands from the steering-wheel during steering maneuvers. In order to study human performance disparities between novel and conventional steering models, a custom simulator was constructed and programmed to render representative models in a test scenario. Twenty-seven males and twenty-seven females, ranging from the ages of eighteen to sixty-five were tested and scored using the driving simulator that presented two successive driving test vignettes: One vignette using conventional 900° steering with linear response and the other employing the augmented 225° multivariate, non-linear steering. The results from simulator testing suggest that both males and females perform better with the novel system, supporting the hypothesis that drivers of either gender perform better with a system augmented with 225° multivariate, non-linear steering than with a conventional steering system. Further analysis of the simulated-driving scores indicates performance parity between male and female participants, supporting the hypothesis positing no significant difference in driver performance between male and female drivers using the augmented steering system. Finally, composite data from written questionnaires support the hypothesis that drivers will prefer driving the augmented system over conventional steering. These collective findings support justification for testing and refining novel steering systems using Modeling and Simulation methods. As a product of this particular study, a tested and open-sourced simulation framework now exists such that researchers and automotive designers can develop, as well as evaluate their own steering-oriented products within a valid human-factors construct. The open-source nature of this framework implies a commonality by which otherwisedisparate research and development work can be associated. Extending this framework beyond basic investigation to reach applications requiring morespecialized parameters may even impact drivers having special needs. For example, steeringsystem functional characteristics could be comparatively optimized to accommodate individuals afflicted with upper-body deficits or limited use of either or both arms. Moreover, the combined human-factors and open-source approaches distinguish the products of this research as a common and extensible platform by which purposeful automotive-industry improvements can be realized—contrasted with arbitrary improvements that might be brought about predominantly to showcase technological advancements

Effectiveness of a Wii Balance Board as a locomotion control method for a virtual reality telepresence robot

Abstract. While virtual reality can greatly contribute to the feeling of presence when operating a telepresence robot, it can come with multiple difficulties to implement in a manner that would make the user feel comfortable. One of those tasks is choosing a locomotion control method. Traditional locomotion control methods for telepresence robot, such as joysticks, might be easy to use but are lacking in immersion. Non-traditional locomotion control methods, for example, a treadmill-type might increase the immersion but the cost of equipment is too high for many users. In this study, we wanted to explore if the Wii Balance Board could be a suitable locomotion control method for a virtual reality telepresence robot. The Wii Balance Board was thought to possibly offer a low-cost and comfortable leaning-based locomotion control method for a telepresence robot. The Wii Balance Board was compared against joysticks, which were chosen as they are one of the most common locomotion control methods in virtual reality. For the experiment, we created a simulated environment in which the subjects had to operate a virtual robot through an assigned path with various obstacles. A 3D-model of the University of Oulu was used as the virtual environment, as it was readily available and represented a possible use case environment for a telepresence robot. The experiment consisted of nine three-part runs. After each run, the subjects filled out a form related to their preferences, and performance data was collected during each run. We had planned to run experiments for 40 people, but due to the COVID-19 outbreak, we were forced to conduct tests with only two researchers instead. After analyzing the results, we conclude that the Wii Balance Board is not suitable for controlling virtual reality telepresence robots in the tested environments. The Wii Balance Board was fatiguing to use after moderate periods of time and did not offer accurate enough control to be used in scenarios other than open environments. For future studies, we suggested to explore other options for joysticks, such as a balance board which would be better-designed for leaning purposes to compensate for the fatigue caused by constant leaning.Wii Balance Boardin tehokkuus ohjausmenetelmänä virtuaalitodellisuus etäläsnärobotille. Tiivistelmä. Vaikka virtuaalitodellisuus voi huomattavasti edistää läsnäolontunnetta käyttäessä etäläsnäolorobottia, siihen voi liittyä useiden haasteiden toteuttaminen tavoilla, jotka saavat käyttäjä saadaan tuntemaan olonsa mukavaksi. Yksi näistä haasteista on liikkeenohjaustyylin valitseminen. Perinteiset liikkeenohjaustyylit etäläsnäolorobotille, kuten ohjaussauvat, voivat olla helposti käytettäviä, mutta puutteellisia immersion kannalta. Epätavanomaiset liikkeenohjaustyylit, kuten juoksumattotyyppiset, voivat lisätä immersiota, mutta laitteistojen kustannukset ovat monille käyttäjille liian suuret. Tässä tutkimuksessa halusimme selvittää, olisiko Wii Balance Board -tasapainolevy sopiva ohjausmenetelmä etäläsnäolorobotille virtuaalitodellisuudessa. Wii Balance Board voisi tarjota halvan ja mukavan nojaukseen perustuvan liikkeenohjaustyylin etäläsnäoloroboteille. Wii Balance Boardia verrattiin ohjaussauvoihin, jotka valittiin, koska ne ovat yksi yleisimmistä liikkeenohjausmenetelmistä virtuaalitodellisuudessa. Tutkimusta varten loimme simuloidun ympäristön, jossa testihenkilöt ohjasivat virtuaalista robottia annettua reittiä pitkin erinäisiä esteitä väistellen. Ympäristönä käytimme Oulun Yliopistosta luotua virtuaalista mallia, koska se oli helposti saatavilla ja kuvasi mahdollista käyttötapausta etäläsnäolorobotille. Tutkimus koostui yhdeksästä kolmiosaisesta kierroksesta. Jokaisen kierroksen jälkeen koehenkilö täytti kyselyn mieltymykseen liittyen ja kierroksilta kerättiin tietoja suorituskykyyn liittyen. Olimme suunnitelleet tutkimuksen toteutettavaksi 40 henkilöllä, mutta COVID-19 taudin puhkeamisen takia meidän oli pakko suorittaa kokeita vain kahdella tutkijalla. Tulosten analysoinnin jälkeen päättelimme, että Wii Balance Board ei ole sopiva virtuaalitodellisuus etäläsnäolorobottien ohjaamiseen testatuissa ympäristöissä. Wii Balance Board oli uuvuttava käyttää kohtalaisen pitkien ajanjaksojen jälkeen eikä se tarjonnut tarpeeksi tarkkaa ohjausta muissa, kuin avoimissa ympäristöissä. Tulevia tutkimuksia varten ehdotimme tutkia muita vaihtoehtoja ohjaussauvoille, kuten tasapainolevy, joka olisi paremmin suunniteltu nojaustarkoituksiin jatkuvan kaltevuuden aiheuttaman väsymyksen kompensoimiseksi

NaviFields: relevance fields for adaptive VR navigation

Virtual Reality allow users to explore virtual environments naturally, by moving their head and body. However, the size of the environments they can explore is limited by real world constraints, such as the tracking technology or the physical space available. Existing techniques removing these limitations often break the metaphor of natural navigation in VR (e.g. steering techniques), involve control commands (e.g., teleporting) or hinder precise navigation (e.g., scaling user's displacements). This paper proposes NaviFields, which quantify the requirements for precise navigation of each point of the environment, allowing natural navigation within relevant areas, while scaling users' displacements when travelling across non-relevant spaces. This expands the size of the navigable space, retains the natural navigation metaphor and still allows for areas with precise control of the virtual head. We present a formal description of our NaviFields technique, which we compared against two alternative solutions (i.e., homogeneous scaling and natural navigation). Our results demonstrate our ability to cover larger spaces, introduce minimal disruption when travelling across bigger distances and improve very significantly the precise control of the viewpoint inside relevant areas

Freehand-Steering Locomotion Techniques for Immersive Virtual Environments: A Comparative Evaluation

Virtual reality has achieved significant popularity in recent years, and allowing users to move freely within an immersive virtual world has become an important factor critical to realize. The user’s interactions are generally designed to increase the perceived realism, but the locomotion techniques and how these affect the user’s task performance still represent an open issue, much discussed in the literature. In this article, we evaluate the efficiency and effectiveness of, and user preferences relating to, freehand locomotion techniques designed for an immersive virtual environment performed through hand gestures tracked by a sensor placed in the egocentric position and experienced through a head-mounted display. Three freehand locomotion techniques have been implemented and compared with each other, and with a baseline technique based on a controller, through qualitative and quantitative measures. An extensive user study conducted with 60 subjects shows that the proposed methods have a performance comparable to the use of the controller, further revealing the users’ preference for decoupling the locomotion in sub-tasks, even if this means renouncing precision and adapting the interaction to the possibilities of the tracker sensor

Automatic Speed Control For Navigation in 3D Virtual Environment

As technology progresses, the scale and complexity of 3D virtual environments can also increase proportionally. This leads to multiscale virtual environments, which are environments that contain groups of objects with extremely unequal levels of scale. Ideally the user should be able to navigate such environments efficiently and robustly. Yet, most previous methods to automatically control the speed of navigation do not generalize well to environments with widely varying scales. I present an improved method to automatically control the navigation speed of the user in 3D virtual environments. The main benefit of my approach is that automatically adapts the navigation speed in multi-scale environments in a manner that enables efficient navigation with maximum freedom, while still avoiding collisions. The results of a usability tests show a significant reduction in the completion time for a multi-scale navigation task

Comparing Hand Gestures and a Gamepad Interface for Locomotion in Virtual Environments

Hand gesture is a new and promising interface for locomotion in virtual environments. While several previous studies have proposed different hand gestures for virtual locomotion, little is known about their differences in terms of performance and user preference in virtual locomotion tasks. In the present paper, we presented three different hand gesture interfaces and their algorithms for locomotion, which are called the Finger Distance gesture, the Finger Number gesture and the Finger Tapping gesture. These gestures were inspired by previous studies of gesture-based locomotion interfaces and are typical gestures that people are familiar with in their daily lives. Implementing these hand gesture interfaces in the present study enabled us to systematically compare the differences between these gestures. In addition, to compare the usability of these gestures to locomotion interfaces using gamepads, we also designed and implemented a gamepad interface based on the Xbox One controller. We conducted empirical studies to compare these four interfaces through two virtual locomotion tasks. A desktop setup was used instead of sharing a head-mounted display among participants due to the concern of the Covid-19 situation. Through these tasks, we assessed the performance and user preference of these interfaces on speed control and waypoints navigation. Results showed that user preference and performance of the Finger Distance gesture were close to that of the gamepad interface. The Finger Number gesture also had close performance and user preference to that of the Finger Distance gesture. Our study demonstrates that the Finger Distance gesture and the Finger Number gesture are very promising interfaces for virtual locomotion. We also discuss that the Finger Tapping gesture needs further improvements before it can be used for virtual walking