Adding and Assessing Vehicle Sound and Steering Feedback: Application to an Unreal Engine Driving Simulator

<div class="section abstract"><div class="htmlview paragraph">To provide an affordable and practical platform for evaluating driving safety, this project developed and assessed 2 enhancements to an Unreal-based driving simulator to improve realism. The current setup uses a 6x6 military truck from the Epic Games store, driving through a pre-designed virtual world. To improve auditory realism, sound cues such as engine RPM, braking, and collision sounds were implemented through Unreal Engine's Blueprint system. Engine sounds were dynamically created by blending 3 distinct RPM-based sound clips, which increased in volume and complexity as vehicle speed rose. For haptic feedback, the road surface beneath each tire was detected, and Unreal Engine Blueprints generated steering wheel feedback signals proportional to road roughness. These modifications were straightforward to implement. They are described in detail so that others can implement them readily.</div><div class="htmlview paragraph">A pilot study was conducted with 3 subjects, each driving a specific route composed of a straight section followed by a turn at an intersection and a curve. Subjects completed the route under 3 conditions: no feedback, steering feedback only, and sound feedback only. Each subject drove the route 3 times for each condition. The results showed a mean speed reduction of 2.4 mph when auditory feedback was present, which was statistically significant (p = 0.0009). Off-road driving time decreased by 42 % when steering feedback was enabled, reducing the off-road percentage from 8.7 % to 4.9 %. These findings suggest that incorporating both auditory and steering feedback in simulations of driving on paved rural roads as was implemented results in more reasonable driving performance.</div></div>