Virtual force field based of force-feedback of road condition for driving assistant design in electric vehicle

Most of the common road accidents are due to the driver's inappropriate behavior, lack of attention, tiredness, and road conditions which usually cause the vehicle to deviate from the roadway or crash into others. Although, thanks to the Steer-by-Wire system, recent research showed that is now possible to enhance vehicles' manipulability and users' safety by stimulating the drivers to react efficiently in common and critical situations. This paper describes a new strategy to assist the driver in his trajectories' planning on a multiple-lane highway. A driving assistant is here designed to give appropriate and continuous tactile feedbacks generated from a virtual force field present in the roadway's environment. First, the assistant algorithm global structure is presented. Then, a road condition dependant virtual force field based driving input is designed in order to avoid road deviations as well as to enhance safety in presence of potentially dangerous road conditions, as lack of adherence and visibility. The performance of the system is evaluated firstly through preliminary simulations, and then confirmed on a driving simulator.