Liberty Mutual Research Institute for Safety Feasibility of an Augmented Reality-Based Approach to Driving Simulation Matthias Roetting (LMRIS) Thomas B. Sheridan (MIT AgeLab) International Symposium New Transportation Technology for Older People September 23-24, 2003 at MIT
LM Research Institute Strategy Mission Liberty Mutual Research Institute for Safety Center for Safety Research 100 90 80 70 60 50 40 Center for Disability Research Conduct research that is To business-relevant differentiate Liberty in a Mutual Group as the market leader by 30 performing peer-reviewed and supporting business-relevant 20 research in injury 10 prevention environment. and disability reduction. 0 86 87 88 Conference papers Published Accepted 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 '00 '01 '02
Transportation Research Distracted and Impaired Age of Drivers: New In-Vehicle Technology Drivers as Cause and Cure Distracted Drivers Heads-Free Eye Tracker Instrumented Test Track In-Vehicle Technology Feedback to Drivers Impaired Drivers
Research of Driver Responses Real Car, Public Road Real Car, Closed Track Vision-Only Simulator Moving Base Simulator AR- Simulation
Basic Idea and Advantages Basic Idea Subject drives actual vehicle in an obstacle-free area Virtual visual hazards are displayed Advantages No motion simulation Perfect vestibular cues The road scene can be 100% virtual (as in conventional driving simulators) a combination of real environment and superposed virtual hazards There are multiple ways to display road scene and to combine real and virtual images
Components Restricted driving area Instrumented vehicle Display to driver (of virtual or combined real-virtual scene) Means to measure vehicle and head position (to compensate virtual image for vehicle or head motion) Software and computers
Vehicle Instrumentation Second brake Car parameters from electric and electronic system Hand wheel angle GPS (WAAS enabled) Lane Tracker 3-axis accelerometer Orientation sensor Head-free eye tracker 2 PC-based video recording systems Power on/off Speed Brake Drive indicator Reverse (back up) Turn signals left/right Running lights High beam Horn Wipers Engine temperature
Optical-See-Through Scene generator Head locations Head tracker Monitors Optical combiners Graphic images Real world Adapted from Azuma, R.T. (1997). A Survey of Augmented Reality. Presence, 6
Video-See-Through Scene generator Graphic images Video compositor Head Head tracker locations Video of real world Real world Adapted from Azuma, R.T. (1997). A Survey of Augmented Reality. Presence, 6
Video-See-Through Marker detection Head locations Scene generator Graphic images Video compositor Combined video Video of real world Real world Adapted from Azuma, R.T. (1997). A Survey of Augmented Reality. Presence, 6
Advantages / Disadvantages Optical-See-Through + Simple system + Undiminished resolution of real world - Occlusion hardly possible - High calibration demands - Delay between real and virtual image - Luminance differences between real and virtual image - Optical combiner reduces light intensity Video-See-Through + Optical markers allow accurate superposition + Insensitive to movement of HMD in relation to head + Occlusion possible - Reduced FOV - Overlay requires more time to compute - Parallax between camera and eye - User is blind in case of power/system failure
From Head Mounted, Video-S-T
From Vehicle Mounted, Video-S-T
AR Scene Generation Camera Display Real Scene + Generated Object Real World Scene Virtual Obstacle
Experiments Experiment 1, purpose: Compare the degree of control of the car for an easy and difficult driving task with direct view, HMD and VMD (without augmentation) Experiment 2, purpose: Test the fidelity of augmentation by comparing an easy and difficult driving task with direct view, HMD and VMD (hazard objects are real for direct view and virtual for HMD and VMD)
Potential Applications Research on human response as a function of safety enhancing systems distractions impairments drugs fatigue etc. Vehicle development (where actual prototype vehicle can be used) Driver training
Outlook Build system with optical-see-through HMD and HUD Use VMD in combination with eye tracker to simulate the effect of vision defects and research the resulting changes in driving performance (e.g., color blindness, glaucoma) Center for Perceptual Systems Space Variant Imaging Web Site at the UTexas svi.cps.utexas.edu/index.htm
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