Driving Simulator STTR Project

Principal Investigator/Program Director (Last, first, middle): DURFEE, WILLIAM K

RESOURCES

FACILITIES: The primary location for simulator development and fabrication will be at Systems Technology, Inc. STI is a world leader in the study of behavior of dynamic systems and the human operators who control them. STI has extensive experience in vehicle dynamics, human-machine interaction and the design and development of person-in-the-loop hardware simulators. STISIM, the driving simulator to be used in this work, is the result of over 20 years of research by STI, and currently there are more than 70 STISIM systems installed throughout the world with applications ranging from automotive hardware prototyping to research studies involving alcohol and fatigue. The main STI facility in Hawthorne CA contains about 14,000 square feet of engineering offices, simulation laboratory and shop space. During the course of the project, STI will make available all necessary resources from the 8,000 square feet devoted to conducting simulation and fabrication activities. The laboratory is used to conduct research experiments, develop simulator prototypes and fabricate STI's various commercial products. The area includes vehicle cabs, instrumentation and fabrication areas and a machine shop. State of the art desktop PC's and display devices are dedicated to the facility.

STI has developed numerous commercial and proprietary hardware/software packages that are available for use on all in-house projects. These include VDANL, a fully nonlinear ground vehicle dynamic computer simulation; STISIM, the low-cost, PC-based, driver-in-the-loop automobile simulator; and Program CC, a computer-aided control system design and analysis package. STI maintains an exceptionally complete central library and technical file that covers many significant publications from both well-known and obscure sources. An extensive data bank has been assembled for human factors, vehicle dynamics, handling and performance, simulations and displays, and manual and automatic control systems, as well as human operator models.

The primary work site at University of Minnesota for the project is the Human/Machine Design Lab in the Department of Mechanical Engineering which is under the direction of the Project P.I. The lab contains resources to support research in biomechanics and mechatronics. Bench space, supplies, instrumentation and tools are available to support the design and construction of mechanical and electronic hardware. A standard complement of hand and benchtop power tools are available, as are oscilloscopes, digital voltmeters, power supplies and cross-compilers and chip burners. other electronic instrumentation. Resources are available for embedded microprocessor development projects. Computer equipment includes several networked PC's for experiment control, data analysis and word processing, and a Silicon Graphics Indigo2 workstation for visualization. Experiment and control software is written in Visual Basic or Borland C/C++ for the PC's and Gnu C/C++ for Unix workstations. Data analysis uses Excel, Matlab and SPSS. Additional resources are available through the Department of Mechanical Engineering. The Department maintains a fully equipped student machine shop which is available to this project at no cost for fabrication of miscellaneous mechanical components. The project has access to the Department Visualization Lab with SGI workstations that run advanced engineering software including ANSYS Rev 5.4 for finite element analysis, Pro/ENGINEER for solid body modeling, Matlab for linear and nonlinear simulations, several data visualization packages, and a variety of other engineering packages.

Descriptions of resources at the collaborating clinical centers (Sister Kenny Rehabilitation Services, Courage Center, National Rehabilitation Hospital) appear in Section H. All centers have standard facilities and equipment for physical and occupational therapy treatments.

MAJOR EQUPMENT: Three new STISIM simulators will be purchased and assembled for the project. They will be sited at SKRS, Courage Center and NRH. The older model simulator currently sited at SKRS and used for the Phase 1 project will be moved to the University of Minnesota for development purposes.