Compensation for delay in the visual display of a driving simulator : effects on lane keeping

Interactive driving simulators with an image generating system have a delay in the feedback of the visual information, which can negatively influence the driver-vehicle system. Recently IZF-TNO has developed a compensation technique for this delay. In this report an experiment is described which has been conducted to investigate the effectiveness of this technique in a representative driving task. Experienced and inexperienced subjects conducted a number of runs in the simulator, both with and without compensation. The driving task consisted of keeping the vehicle in the middle of a straight road, while external disturbances were imposed on the yaw angle. The effect of delay compensation was studied for several variables which are frequently used in simulator experiments to characterize vehicle motion and steering effort. Results showed that the compensation has a significant effect on almost all variables. The use of compensation caused smoother vehicle motions and a reduction in the required steering effort. The average effect size is approximately 10%.