2005 Computerworld Honors Program

	Driving Simulator Daimler-Benz, AG, Dept. F1M/FF Berlin, Germany Year: 1997 Status: Finalist Category: Transportation Nominating Company: Evans & Sutherland
	The Daimler-Benz Driving Simulator allows new product design ideas to be tested quickly by drivers who experience the sensation of driving in simulator cabins that look like real cars.
	Daimler-Benz has designed, built and set-up a high-fidelity driving simulator in Berlin, Germany. Equipped with the most up-to-date information technology and hydromechanics this unique simulator is used as a development and research tool. Applications on this tool cover the whole spectrum in the "Driver - Vehicle - Environment" sphere of influence. It therefore helps to develop and test safer car concepts as well as to better understand drivers' behaviour in todays' complex traffic environments. The simulator is also used for road design studies, for the reconstruction of accidents and for investigations into the influence of alcohol, drugs and medication on driving ability. All driving simulator experiments are performed under controllable and reproducible conditions without any potential danger for the test driver or the car. Results of the experiments help to integrate highly sophisticated technologies into future cars and road systems to better meet people's capabilities and needs in a mobile global society. In the driving simulator the driver as a human being is integrated into the simulated virtual world. He is sitting and driving in a simulator cabin that looks like a real car and which is equipped with all instruments and controls like a real car. This cabin is mounted on a motion platform and surrounded by a light-weight dome construction. The inner surface of the dome is also used as a projection screen for the computer generated image of the road and its surroundings. This image is projected onto the screen in a semicircle in front of the vehicle and also behind it for the rear view mirrors. The motion platform is moved by a 6-degree of freedom hydraulic system. Six actuators together with a system of rails and an additional seventh actuator for the lateral motion combine to give the driver a highly realistic impression of the vehicle's dynamic behaviour according to the driver's actions. A sound system is perfectly coodinated with the driving action and visual effects. Real sounds are sampled and reproduced via loudspeakers at the place where they originate. Further information goes through the control loading system which is presenting the forces at the steering wheel and the pedals and it also controls the instruments in the simulator cabin. Thus the loop is closed and the driver can react to the behaviour of the car. The mathematical equations representing the behaviour of the simulated car are in some respect the main part of the complete simulator. In order to allow for easy modifications of the car's model it is constructed with as close a correspondence as possible to the structure of the real vehicle. The mathematical model is calculated on a real-time driving dynamics computer system which is also used to control the hydraulic motion system. The achievable frame time for calculating the vehicle dynamics including data input and output is less than 6 ms. The visual system is a 6 channel real-time image generator with six high performance video projectors. These projectors can easily be replaced by a virtual reality head mounted display to simulate cars that have not yet been built as physical cabins. The image generator is connected to the driving dynamics computer through a high-speed virtual memory interface.
	As soon as a new car concept has been descriped as a mathematical model it can be implemented and thus been tested in the driving simulator. The simulated car becomes drivable at a very early development stage, i.e. long before the first physical vehicle can is built. This enables car development engineers to figure out and eliminate conceptual problems in their design much easier and thus much cheaper compared to the traditional method of car development. In conjunction with the driving simulator new technologies and vehicle subsystems can be tested by many drivers without any risk of accident. Therefore future cars and their man-machine-interface can be adapted to the drivers' capabilities and needs much better. Using the driving simulator also allows to investigate drivers' behaviour in certain traffic environments or depent upon specific road designs. Even accidents can be reconstructed. All these experiments can be reproduced with many test drivers helping to get statistically important results. These results are very valuable for car development, road design and they also help to enhance driver training concepts.
	The use of high-end motion based simulation systems has been very well established especially for the training of aircraft pilots for many years. Compared to flight simulation the system requirements to be fullfilled by a high-fidelity driving simulator are different and even higher in several aspects. To meet these requirements the Daimler-Benz Driving Simulator was not bought as a turn-key system. It was built from scratch using specially designed and optimized components. The simulator concept as well as all neccessary integration work was done by Daimler-Benz. All the simulation software was also developed and implemented in-house. Simulation of motor vehicle movement is considerably more complex and is a lot more dynamic than the movement of an airplane.One major problem is simulating lateral acceleration. To be able to reproduce vehicle movement as closely to reality as possible a specially designed hydraulic motion system had to be developed and built. While the pilot of an aircraft is used to fly his plane by mainly reading the instruments the driver of a vehicle mainly relies on his out-of-the-window view. This view is generated by a highly sophisticated image generator adopted from flight simulation systems. As all displayed objects in the scene are much closer to the driver's eyepoint than in a flight simulator and the scene complexity especially in city traffic environments is very high, the visual system had to be modified and configured especially for use in the driving simulator.
	The Daimler-Benz Driving Simulator started operation in 1985. At that time it was the first driving simulator in this complexity and to this level of perfection in the world. The goal of the first experiments was to figure out the capabilities and the limits of a simulator for research on car development and driver's behaviour. The results of these experiments did demonstrate the value and the potential of using a simulator which is now fully integrated in the development process of new Mercedes-Benz vehicles. Other car companies, universities, research facilities specialized on traffic safety and road design as well as driver training agencies all over the world started driving simulation projects motivated by the Daimler-Benz Driving Simulator. In spite of all these activities the Daimler-Benz Driving Simulator is still the most complex and state-of-the-art driving simulator worldwide. It went through a major refurbishment in 1993/94.
	The Daimler-Benz Driving Simulator is fully operational and its reliability is sufficient for using the system in the development process of new Mercedes- Benz vehicles. Several safety options that are integrated in Mercedes-Benz cars on the market right now were developed and tested using the simulator. Several experiments on drivers' behaviour, road design and on the influence of drugs and medication on driving ability done together with several German, US and other foreign government agencies helped to improve traffic safety on public roads.
	At the time the Daimler-Benz Driving Simulator was designed and built nobody excactly knew what it really would be useful for. Therefore the first experiments were performed mainly to figure out and demonstrate the capabilities and the limits of the system. Some of these experiments have been done both in the simulator as well as with real cars on real roads. By comparing the results it became obvious that within certain limits data collected through a simulator test can be transferred into reality. Especially variances found in a simulator experiment very well match with those found through real test drives. This fact was a major step towards becoming accepted by the car development engineers and towards becoming integrated into the development process of new Mercedes-Benz vehicles.