An Approach for Realistic Simulation of Real Road Condition in a Moving Base Driving Simulator

With today’s advanced measurement equipment for monitoring road condition, it is possible to measure road geometry at high precision within a large span of wavelengths. Detailed information about the roads’ longitudinal and lateral profiles, including macro texture, would in theory be sufficient for a realistic reproduction of road induced vibration and noise in a driving simulator. Especially, it would be possible to create a direct connection between the visual information of the road condition and the ride experience, which would increase the level of realism in the simulation. VTI has, during three years, performed an internal project called SHAKE with the aim to develop and implement models in VTI driving simulator III that use measured road data for generating realistic vibrations and audible road noise connected to the visual impression presented on the projection screen. This has indeed resulted in a more realistic driving experience, and a validation study with test persons driving both in the simulator and in the field has been undertaken. The OpenDRIVE standard is used as a framework for describing the road properties (e.g., visual, vibrations, and noise). For this purpose, some augmentations to the OpenDRIVE standard had to be made. This paper describes the technical implementations in the driving simulator, along with results from test drives on the implemented road sections.