Assessing the Transfer of Simulator Trained Skills to Real Vehicle Control

• Main Authors: Countermarsh, Barry, MacDonald, Kelley, Shoop, Sally
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: Iowa Research Online 2011
• Subjects: Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory
• Online Access: https://ir.uiowa.edu/drivingassessment/2011/papers/79; https://ir.uiowa.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1447&context=drivingassessment

The Army Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory is conducting a project to investigate the value of a motion based simulator in teaching vehicle control for off-road driving conditions. A primary goal is to reduce accidents caused by the loss of control of high center-of-gravity military vehicles in situations normally not found in the civilian driving experience. This study presents data from a two year portion of our work to develop metrics to assess the effectiveness of simulator training for developing vehicle control skills. For the first year, 10 drivers were trained using a simulator in an accident avoidance (AA) maneuver. Their performance was compared against 10 untrained drivers in a real vehicle. The second year 5 trained drivers from the first study were given sparse sustainment training in the simulator and again compared against 5 untrained drivers in a real vehicle. We considered metrics specifically related to the vehicle control aspects of the training to determine if the trainee acquired the necessary muscle memory to correctly implement the various vehicle control steps involved in the maneuver. We also briefly describe the participant’s views on their training experience.