Volunteered to drive in a simulator for researching a new driving aid system

Join Date: May 2022

Location: Linkoping

Posts: 312

Thanked: 1,436 Times

Scrolling through my Facebook feed one day, I came across an ad posted by Sweden's Road and Transport Research Institute, calling for volunteers to test the viability of a new driving aid system. The requirement to participate in the program was simple; the volunteer must have a valid Swedish driving license (B), and have driven at least a certain stipulated number of kilometers since having acquired the driver's license. The aim of the session was to use a newly developed driving aid and provide feedback about the experience. Intrigued, I sent in my response and received a link which I could use to register for a time slot on the simulator.

On the given day, which was a Saturday, I walked in, met the researcher who explained to me the plan. I was told that I would be introduced to a new driver assist system, but the researcher was deliberately vague about how it would function, in order for me to be able to give the best possible feedback. I started off on a simulated version of the European Motorway 4 (E4), where the simulated motorway had an extra lane. The simulator equipment was identical to what one could find in the cockpit of a Volvo sedan. It was an automatic, so no clutch pedal, or gear stick. My introduction gave me some info about who I was supposed to be; a person who was in a bit of a hurry, and I was going to be driving slightly above the legal limit, i.e. would be doing around 130 on a 110 road. As soon as I started by pressing the accelerator for the first time, the car would begin to automatically accelerate till it reached 130 km/h where it would stay, unless I applied the brakes, but the car would resume to speed up as soon as I let go of the brakes. This was of course quite a bit unlike normal driving, but was easy enough to work with. Once we started, the gas pedal was really unnecessary, as the simulator would do the acceleration itself and once we reached 130 km/h, even flooring the pedal wouldn't make us go any faster.

Here's a clip of me at the controls

As I was driving, the dashboard lit up with an alert about approaching emergency vehicles; it gave me a little extra time to plan how best I could get out of the way to give the emergency vehicles free and unhindered passage. The simulator session lasted close to 40 minutes and I'd got and reacted to a bunch of those alerts. At one point, I was on the left most lane at the max speed of 130 km/h and all of the right lanes had traffic, and I really couldn't move across as quickly as I'd have liked, and neither could I go any faster, due to the limitations of the simulator session, but I did point this out to the expert, that in real life, I'd have floored the gas to try and get myself out of the way faster.

Post driving, I was asked to fill in a questionnaire which even included video clips of other versions of similar driver aids, and I was asked to grade them in terms of most helpful, least distracting and so on. Participating in this survey reinforced my conviction about how committed the Swedish state is, to achieve their Zero traffic fatality goal.

Join Date: May 2007

Location: mumbai

Posts: 23

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That must have been an exciting experience.

I went through such a simulator for a driving test (this was mandatory, so no way I could have avoided it.) The instructor warned of nausea and that I could take a break.

I scoffed at the idea because I have extensive experience with all sorts of G forces in planes and boats (I've been through a few storms myself).

But I can tell you, even I could not handle the nausea that set in after about an hour, and I had to call it off.

Have you ever had a similar experience? I'm curious to know.

Join Date: May 2022

Location: Linkoping

Posts: 312

Thanked: 1,436 Times

It was a very nice experience, and yes, I too was warned about nausea or feeling disoriented. For me, the main issue was the white poles on the median, to the left hand side edge of my peripheral vision. The rendering of those poles was rather choppy I felt, and that resulted in a slight headache, but once I identified that as a problem, I tried my best to not look at it directly, and it at least partially worked. It was still there to the side and was creating a bit of a strobe effect. I wouldn't recommend a simulator at all for anything other than a training session. I think it's a bad idea to use it for an actual traffic test.

I asked the researcher how others reacted or if there were any special challenges; one of them apparently had to discontinue the session as they were too disoriented. Another candidate simply couldn't get a hang of the auto-accelerating car and was constanly using the brakes to bring down the speed of the car! I asked him if any candidate had crashed the car during the simulated drive, and the answer was yes, and more than one person had done so!