Objective Evaluation Method of Steering Comfort Based on Movement Quality Evaluation of Driver Steering Maneuver

The existing research of steering comfort mainly focuses on the subjective evaluation,aiming at designing and optimizing the steering system.In the development of steering system,especially the evaluation of steering comfort,the objective evaluation methods considered the kinematic characteristics of driver steering maneuver are not proposed,which means that the objective evaluation of steering cannot be conducted with the evaluation of kinematic characteristics of driver in steering maneuver.In order to propose the objective evaluation methods of steering comfort,the evaluation of steering movement quality of driver is developed on the basis of the study of the kinematic characteristics of steering maneuver.First,the steering motion trajectories of the driver in both comfortable and certain extreme uncomfortable operation conditions are detected using the Vicon motion capture system.The operation conditions are under the restrictions of the vertical height and horizontal distance between steering wheel center and the H-point of driver,and the steering resisting torque else.Next,the movement quality evaluation of driver steering maneuver is assessed using twelve kinds of evaluation indices based on the kinematic analyses of the steering motion trajectories to propose an objective evaluation method.Finally,an integrated discomfort index of steering maneuver is proposed on the basis of the regression analysis of subjective evaluation rating and the movement quality evaluation indices,including the Jerk,Discomfort and Joint Torque indices.The test results show that the proposed integrated discomfort index gives a good fitting with the subjective evaluation of discomfort,which means it can be used to evaluate or predict the discomfort level of steering maneuver.This paper proposes an objective evaluation method of steering comfort based on the movement quality evaluation of driver steering maneuver.

Design,Hydrodynamic Analysis,and Testing of a Bio-inspired Movable Bow Mechanism for the Hybrid-driven Underwater Glider

Hybrid-driven Underwater Glider(HUG)is a new type of underwater vehicle which integrates the functions of an Autonomous Underwater Glider(AUG)and an Autonomous Unmanned Vehicle(AUV).Although HUG has the characteristics of long endurance distance,its maneuverability still has room to be improved.This work introduces a new movement form of the neck of the underwater creature into HUG and proposes a parallel mechanism to adjust the attitude angle and displacement of the HUG’s bow,which can improve the steering maneuverability.Firstly,the influence of bow movement and rotation on the hydrodynamic force and flow field of the whole machine is analyzed by using the Computational Fluid Dynamics(CFD)method.The degree of freedom,attitude control range and movement amount of the Movable Bow Mechanism(MBM)are obtained,and then the design of MBM is completed based on these constraints.Secondly,the kinematic and dynamic models of MBM are established based on the closed vector method and the Lagrange equation,respectively,which are fully verified by comparing the results of simulation in Matlab and Adams software,then a Radial Basis Function(RBF)neural network adaptive sliding mode controller is designed to improve the dynamic response effect of the output parameters of MBM.Finally,a prototype of MBM is manufactured and assembled.The kinematic,dynamics model and controller are verified by experiments,which provides a basis for applying MBM in HUGs.