Development of a Parameterized Passenger Vehicle Model for Longitudinal Dynamics for a Desktop Driving Simulator

Driving Simulators are an important research tool in the automotive field. They are used to simulate and verify interactions between vehicles and drivers in a realistic as well as conditioned traffic environment. Real vehicle testing and pure simulation (using a driver model) are two alternative tools of collecting such information. In essence, driver simulators are especially valuable in gauging drivers action and perception, which cannot be adequately simulated or are less suitable in testing in real vehicles.
Adequate and accurate vehicle model, representative of the real vehicle behaviour in different driving conditions, is needed. However, to model a certain vehicle is a non-trivial, expensive and time-consuming task. Advanced driver simulators are present in Sweden, especially kept by VTI in Göteborg and Linköping, which provide very realistic driver experience and perception and they simulate, very accurately, a real-time scenario in a holistic environment.
But, in the modern world, vehicle and traffic situations have become so complex that the application and usefulness of driving simulators has moved beyond its usual definition. Thus, every experiment goes through an intricate, time-consuming and thus expensive process of experimental design and development. The solution proposed in this master thesis is a Desktop Driving Simulator, located at Chalmers University of Technology, in Göteborg, which is portable and can simulate an experiment/scenario at an office level before moving to advanced simulators or moving to test track.
Moreover, the thesis describes the hardware of the Desktop Driving Simulator and its software system in a very detailed.
Several simulations were performed, also with an Anti-lock braking system (ABS)-equipped vehicle. It is used in the modern cars to prevent the wheels from locking after brakes are applied. To be able to run a simulation with this system and study the braking performance, an ABS system was modelled. Particularly, the ABS subsystem in Simulink included in the S2 vehicle model, located at Chalmers University of Technology, was fitted in the original Vehicle Dynamics Model of this thesis.
The vehicle model was parameterized for a passenger vehicle, such as a Volvo S40 (1.6 ton). Different cases were analized, performing offline and online simulations in order to make some considerations on driver behaviour and influence. The offline simulations are obtained only using MATLAB and Simulink, while the online ones are performed driving the Desktop Driving Simulator.
However, results obtained will not be at par with analysis on advanced simulators, especially regarding driver perception and response, but may provide an indication towards its behaviour and relevance.
From the experiments, it was possible to detect that the offline and online simulations performed are roughly equal, show the same behavior, except for the initial delay and some interference driving the simulator.
Anyhow, the thesis can be considered a very stable base for further model tuning and future tests. With its modular structure and small manual, it can be considered as a good starting point for future improvement of the whole simulator system.