CONNECTED SIMULATION CAPTURES REALISTIC HUMAN INTERACTION NADS recently wrapped up a multi-year project on connected (a.k.a., distributed) simulation funded by the Federal Highway Administration. While most simulations in driving research involve one human participant, this project involved multiple people interacting in the same virtual environment. A driver in the NADS-1 simulator could see and interact with an actual pedestrian who was wearing a virtual reality headset and walking around in another part of the facility. The pedestrian and the driver could see each other’s head and limb movement through their digital avatars, and they could gesture at each other to visually communicate. The goal? The team wanted to know if participants in the simulator would behave differently if they were interacting with the avatar of a real person instead of a computergenerated (agent) pedestrian.
The avatar of a real person accurately reflects the limb and head movements of that person.
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The team completed three major aims for the project: 1.
Develop the technology for connecting real-time driving and pedestrian simulators.
2. Create realistic avatars to represent the tracked motions of real drivers and pedestrians. 3. Design and conduct an experiment in which pairs of naive drivers and pedestrians interacted in a shared virtual world.
Chris Schwarz looks over the shoulder of Shawn Allen while collaborating on a project.