Simulation has given us dinosaurs in “Jurassic Park”, aliens in Star Wars and the capability to fly space shuttles without even leaving a building in Houston, TX. But, until recently, true computer-generated simulation was reserved for the multi-million dollar corporation or a tax-beneficiary branch of the US government. With the typical low-end simulation system costing in the quarter-million dollar range and a NASA’s-quality system in the billion-dollar range, few affordable applications of simulation existed. Certainly, not in the research levels of the average public university.

But, not any more. Thanks in part to Hyperion Technologies and Dr. Michael P. Manser Ph.D., an Associate Research Scientist for the Human Factors Program at the Texas Transportation Institute on the Texas A&M campus, now simulation is finally affordable. Dr. Manser used Hyperion’s technology to build a real-world driver simulation station that’s capable of placing any driver in virtually any driving situation.

“We even used a real 1998 Saturn sedan,” explained Dr. Manser. “At the TTI (Texas Transportation Institute), we need to place the driver in scenarios that make them feel as though they are really driving a car down a road. We need the situations to be real world and the driver to immerse themselves in the experience of driving. Not be distracted by the technology. The Driving Environment Simulator allows drivers to navigate through a computer generated driving environment while controlling steering, braking, and acceleration exactly like they would in a real driving environment. Drivers’ behaviors, reactions, and ability to ‘drive’ the vehicle are all recorded for objective and subjective analysis which allow investigators to examine human perception, cognition, and behavior in realistic driving scenarios.”

Human-environment issues, which can be examined, include, but are not limited to, the effects of effects of alcohol, effects of fatigue, environmental design, older driver, driver assessment, driver training, information and sign comprehension, mental workload, mental modeling, and visual search patterns. In addition, through the use of the laptop computer in the driving environment simulator issues such as in-vehicle displays, in-vehicle navigation displays, “reconfigurable” displays, and a variety of other in-vehicle information display methods can be easily examined.

Lastly, the driving environment simulator can be modified to the extent of replacing the vehicle cab with other types of vehicle cabs to investigate human-environment interaction issues in flight and marine transportation. To accomplish this, the car is sitting in front of three Da-Lite screens that fill 150-degrees of the person’s field of view. The three screens actually surround the visual site-lines of the driver such that they can be placed in any world the computer simulation software can devise.

“Traditional systems like these use SGI (Silicon Graphics) workstations to create simulated environments, commented Dr. Manser. He continued, “Not only are these expensive systems to purchase, but they’re expensive to keep up technically.”

Using three Proxima 6810 LCD projectors displaying one perfectly edge-matched image at 3072 x 768 resolution (three 1024 x 768 projected images side-by-side), the system is being used for all sorts of driver safety situations. In fact, the latest project Dr. Manser and his team worked on was one for the University of Minnesota where they wanted to test the theory of speed control within tunnels. In Europe markings are used on the walls of tunnels to slow down and speed up tunnel traffic flow based on the safety of the tunnel section they are driving in.

For example, Dr. Manser’s team, through simulations using his $80,000 system, proved that drivers would react differently to the thickness and space distance of lines painted on the walls of the tunnels. As lines on the walls become thicker or fatter, the driver tends to slow down where thin, contiguous and thin lines make drivers speed up. To prove this theory in a real tunnel and in real driving situations, this would have cost a fortune and potentially cost human lives. The simulator that Dr. Manser designed does it in a matter of hours and at a fraction of the cost.

“This system was cool and actually simple compared to many that we’ve been involved with in the past,” remarked Race Morgenroth, account executive for Houston-based Amarch Presentation Solutions who managed installation of Dr. Manser’s system. “Da-Lite’s screens were the most complicated part of the system but Da-Lite themselves made that easy.”

The three screens are positioned so that they form a 150-degree viewing cone for the driver. Each screen accepts one-third of the projected image from a dedicated Proxima 6810 1024 x 768 projector. The three projected images make one full image angled around the Saturn car.

System Bits: (Approximate System Cost $80,000)
Projection Screens: Projection Systems: Three Proxima 6810 LCD Projectors Computer Simulation Software and Hardware: Hyperion Technologies Video and RGB Routing System: Altinex Distribution Amplifiers.

To reach Amarch in Houston, call (281) 586-8979 or 1-800-324-2225 or go to their web site at http://www.amarch.com.