Evaluation of driving performance of wheel loader in the framework of fitts' law

Abstract

This paper proposes a novel method for evaluating the performance of control modalities related to driving a wheel loader, according to the framework of Fitts' law and the steering law. Fitts' law is an empirical model for the evaluation of human performance. This model is widely used in human factors studies. The steering law is an extension of Fitts' law, and this law is used especially for evaluating driving performance. To evaluate a driver's performance, we carried out driving simulations of V-Shaped driving tasks based on ISO 5010 steering requirements. The simulation model of the Doosan DL400 class wheel loader was developed using an Open Dynamics Engine (ODE), and the steering performance of the model was tested with a human subject by using a driving simulator. The steering performance was analyzed with three different parameters: The maximum velocity, the steering ratio, and the friction coefficient. The simulation results show that the steering performance was consistent with both Fitts' law and the steering law. The completion time was corrected linearly with an index of difficulty, with r2 being between 0.95 and 0.99. These results suggest that the proposed method is feasible for providing a quantitative tool that can be used to design the control modalities of wheel loaders. © 2018 Korean Society for Precision Engineeing. All rights reserved.