Vehicle Control During Curve Driving

Abstract

Most of the available vehicle-control models in the literature are based on the assumption that the automobile driver acts as an error-correcting mechanism with continuous attention allocated to the steering task. Based on a preview-predictor model, the time-to-line crossing (TLC) description was developed to quantify the potential role of error-neglecting strategies in driving. Ina previous study the usefulness of the TLC concept was illustrated for straight lane keeping. In the present analysis TLC was applied to describe steering through a curve. When entering a curve, drivers made an anticipatory steering action based on the perceived road curvature and the internal estimate of the vehicle characteristics. This process was analyzed in a field study in which subjects entered curves of different curvatures, with different speeds and with/without temporary withdrawal of visual feedback. The TLC analysis appears particularly suited to describe the quality of the anticipatory steering action and may serve as a general description of curve driving.