SIMULATOR TRAINED SKILLS DEVELOP LEARNED BEHAVIOR AND MUSCLE MEMORY,
PROVEN TO REDUCE MOTOR VEHICLE ACCIDENTS AND SAVE LIVES.
Summary:
Army Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory conducted a project to investigate the value of a motion based simulator in teaching vehicle control for off-road driving conditions. A primary goal was 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 12 million dollar study generated data to assess the effectiveness of simulator training for developing vehicle control skills.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvsKgbE-A1E
AM&W (Adaptive Motorsports & Wellness) plans to share 12 million dollars worth of information, in order to reduce accidents and save lives of teenage drivers. AM&W realize changing the face of drivers education as we know it today will not be an easy task, However the statistics and strategic plan are solid. The plan is to cross reference 12 million dollars worth of research and relationships in order to compare 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.
OBJECTIVE:
National Highway Traffic Safety Administration acknowledge driver education programs taught in public schools are ineffective and antiquated program. However, AM&W documented results that prove simulator driver education develop safe-driving habits and decision-making skills in safe and secure environments. This intervention prevents student drivers from becoming overwhelmed trying to process traffic rules, recognize traffic signs in realistic high-density traffic situations. Simulation technology has been used to train pilots, soldiers, and police academies throughout the country.
Adaptive Motorsports & Wellness signed a Proprietary Information Agreement (PIA) regarding discussions on simulation for returning soldiers and teen drivers. Past relationships and contacts rallied together to develop vehicle control, training procedures and techniques common to high-performance oval track and road course professional drivers. Together, We are considering car control techniques that are useful in civilian vehicles that can be that can be driven in a wide variety of road and traffic conditions, simulator instructor can manipulate the scenarios and parameters at any time during the driving session to help accommodate specific individual training objectives and most importantly the instructor can playback a scenario and use it to “teach” a correct response to a situation. Knowing how to swiftly react to sudden friction changes, road depressions, or soft shoulders is essential to retain vehicle control. This simulator has been shown to enhance the basic vehicle control skills needed to succeed in these conditions. By recreating unexpected situations, drivers can develop rapid responses automatically through muscle memory.
Adaptive Motorsports & Wellness partnered with a driving skills school develop vehicle control training procedures and techniques common to high-speed and performance that competition drivers and first responders engage in on a regular basis. We are investigating car control techniques that could be useful in controlling civilian and passenger vehicles on public highways to implemented in an automated simulation training environment.
Driver performance will then be compared against untrained drivers executing the AA maneuver in a real vehicle. We developed a set of objective assessment metrics specific to the vehicle control steps trained that we hoped would tell us if the simulator training was effective. The work here presents the metrics measured and shows the trends between the trained and untrained drivers using those metrics.
METHODS:
The work described here spans a two year period where students train using Accident Avoidance (AA) scenario in a simulator with emphasis on the steps necessary for vehicle control throughout the maneuver. The goal was to use the simulator to develop muscle memory in the students so the necessary driver inputs would become automatic during the real vehicle tests.
The first year
- 10 students will be trained by an instructor using the L-3/VXP simulator powered by running L-3 or CarSim DS software.
- The students will attended a 30 minute class every week for a total of 10 weeks.
- The training will focus on vehicle control and various weight transfer techniques as well as practice in the AA maneuver itself.
- These 10 trained drivers get compared against 10 untrained drivers in a real vehicle running the same AA scenario.
The second year of testing is sustainment training. The goal is to determine if short infrequent training sessions could sustain the necessary skills to perform the AA maneuver correctly.
- 5 trained students from the first year’s testing will be given approximately 10 minute long refresher session in the simulator, with an instructor, once every three or four weeks over a 7 month period.
- These five students will then be compared against five untrained drivers in real vehicle tests.
- In both cases the students are people both physically challenged and ambulatory, male and female, military and civilian, young and old, professional and civilian drivers. All have driven for most of their adult life.
CONCLUSION
Strategic plan is to research & identify state and government funding resources accessible via BAA announcements, Department of Defense SBIR/STTR grants, private & corporate funding partners in order to eliminate the collection of useless information.
I flat lined before, i know its pretty lonely crashing without any plans, resources or direction. Team O'Neil based in NH pioneered this program designed to save military lives, For AM&W the time to change the face of drivers education is NOW, everything and everyone feel right!
