WestDrive X LoopAR: An open-access virtual reality project in Unity for evaluating user interaction methods during TOR
Farbod N. Nezami, Maximilian A. W\"achter, Nora Maleki, Philipp, Spaniol, Lea M. K\"uhne, Anke Haas, Johannes M. Pingel, Linus Tiemann,, Frederik Nienhaus, Lynn Keller, Sabine K\"onig, Peter K\"onig, Gordon Pipa

TL;DR
This paper introduces WestDrive X LoopAR, an open-source VR toolkit in Unity designed for studying driver interactions and takeover behaviors in highly automated vehicles, offering realistic, versatile, and cost-effective simulation environments.
Contribution
It provides a comprehensive, modular VR environment with integrated force feedback and eye-tracking, enabling realistic and adaptable human-machine interaction experiments in automotive research.
Findings
Realistic traffic and pedestrian simulation covering 25 km²
Integration of force feedback for steering wheels
Support for eye-tracking in VR environments
Abstract
With the further development of highly automated vehicles, drivers will engage in non-related tasks while being driven. Still, drivers have to take over control when requested by the car. Here the question arises, how potentially distracted drivers get back into the control-loop quickly and safely when the car requests a takeover. To investigate effective human-machine interactions in mobile, versatile, and cost-efficient setup is needed. We developed a virtual reality toolkit for the Unity 3D game engine containing all necessary code and assets to enable fast adaptations to various human-machine interaction experiments, including close monitoring of the subject. The presented project contains all needed functionalities for realistic traffic behavior, cars, and pedestrians, as well as a large, open-source, scriptable, and modular VR environment. It covers roughly 25 square km, a package…
Peer Reviews
No public reviews on file for this paper yet. If you reviewed it on a platform where reviews are public (OpenReview, ICLR, NeurIPS, ICML), you can paste yours below so the community can read it here.
Videos
No videos yet. Explain this paper in a talk, walkthrough, or lecture? Add one.
Taxonomy
TopicsHuman-Automation Interaction and Safety · Traffic and Road Safety · Autonomous Vehicle Technology and Safety
