Small Driving Simulator Development And Research On Driver Steering Torque Feedback System

In the development process of modern automobile, more and more experiments conducted by simulation technology are carried out. This can greatly reduce field tests in the early development stage, meanwhile it has unparalleled advantage s when it comes to safety and energy-saving aspects. Only by software simulation, however, will cause the ignorance of the most important part of driving behavior- that, in essence, is driver. To make driver be considered during the driving loop, driving simulator gains rapid development. Research conducted by driving simulator in related issues becomes a very promising technical means in future vehicle development.With rapid growth of vehicle electronic control and intelligence systems in the market, a wide range of driving simulators showed up. The cost of large-scale driving simulator from procurement, application as well as maintenance is extremely high, which leads to the un-popularized application of large-scale driving simulator. However driving simulator, as a tool, is urgently demanded in each phases of automobile development, design and optimization. So the study of small driving simulator is overall coordinated with the trend of future automotive development process.As a strength of small driving simulator, low cost can also be a boundary constraint when designing, which leads to a set of problems. For example, the limited performance of arithmetic processor restricts the complexity of vehicle dynamics model, and inexpensive anti-torque generation component can hardly give satisfied control effect. When driving/steering operation under driving simulator, it is steering tor que feedback system which provide necessary “road feel”. While mounting research effort of this system has been devoted from prior research in past decades, challenges of high-fidelity hand-feel simulation remain, in particular, on small-scale driving simulators.Along with these problems, this paper carries out the small driving simulator development and research on steering torque feedback system. Driving simulator development combines of system architecture, mechanical structure as well as hardware design. On the basis, a simplified steering system model, which is based on physical modeling, is presented, thus dynamic system delay can be effectively improved. At the same time, the control strategy is proposed for adjusting control parameters real-time on-line. Based on hardware-in-the-loop platform using rapid control prototype, the verification of developed driving simulator and established steering torque feedback system is implemented.