THE IOWA DRIVING SIMULATOR - AN IMMERSIVE RESEARCH ENVIRONMENT

The Iowa Driving Simulator (IDS) is a high-fidelity, immersive virtual environment for driving simulation. It supports a variety of applicat ions, ranging from traffic safety research to full-scale test and eval uation of vehicle designs. The IDS places an operator at the controls of a detailed, computational vehicle model in a rich, fully interactiv e environment, including traffic, roadway, and other environmental cha racteristics, while providing the driver with high-fidelity motion, vi sual, auditory, and force feedback cues. The immersive virtual environ ment can create a range of driving conditions from high density, multi lane urban freeways to two-lane rural roads and off-road terrain. A wi de variety of scenarios and events can be specified to meet experiment al needs. The authors describe the capabilities and underlying archite cture of the IDS and the approach used to model and control the virtua l environment. Several current applications of the IDS are highlighted , including its use in the study of human-factors issues for an automa ted highway system and creation of a ''virtual proving ground'' for en gineering evaluation of military and commercial vehicles. As of July 1 995, approximately 1,000 experimental runs have been conducted in conj unction with 22 separate studies using the IDS. Another 450 runs will be made before the end of the year.