Effects of motion cueing on longitudinal acceleration perception in a driving simulator

2026-06-26

AI Summary

This study addresses the challenge of perceptually evaluating subtle differences in longitudinal acceleration during vehicle launch and throttle tip-in maneuvers to support early-stage drivability assessment for heavy-duty trucks. The authors propose, for the first time, a motion cueing algorithm specifically tailored to the launch phase, implemented on a human-in-the-loop, long-stroke moving-base driving simulator. Through psychophysical experiments employing the weighted up–down method, psychometric function fitting, and generalized linear modeling, they quantify users’ just-noticeable differences (JNDs) and subjective preferences regarding acceleration profiles. Results reveal an average JND of 5.4%, with participants significantly favoring the proposed algorithm over baseline approaches, thereby demonstrating its effectiveness in enhancing perceived realism during simulated vehicle launches.

Abstract

The driveability of a new heavy-truck driveline is traditionally assessed using physical prototypes. Enabling early evaluation of the driving experience in a human-in-the-loop driving simulator using a virtual prototype has the potential to significantly improve development efficiency. To enable driveability assessment using a moving-base simulator, participants must be able to perceive small differences in longitudinal acceleration. The just-noticeable difference (JND) was therefore evaluated for two variants of the classical motion-cueing algorithm (MCA) tuned specifically for tip-in/launch tests and compared to a more general variant in a driving simulator with a long linear track. Psychometric functions were fitted to responses obtained using a weighted staircase procedure and analysed using a generalized linear model. No significant differences in JND were found between the motion cueing variants. The mean JND across all participants and MCA variants was 5.4%. The mean point of subjective equality in the JND experiment was -1.9%, suggesting that participants perceived the acceleration as higher in the second stimulus of a pair. In a subjective comparison, most participants preferred the motion cueing variants that were tuned for launch manoeuvres over the general variant.

Problem

• longitudinal acceleration perception
• motion cueing
• driving simulator
• just-noticeable difference
• driveability assessment

Innovation

• motion cueing algorithm
• just-noticeable difference
• longitudinal acceleration perception
• driving simulator
• driveability assessment