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Grand Theft Auto-Based Cycling Simulator for Cognitive Enhancement Technologies in Dangerous Traffic Situations

While developing traffic-based cognitive enhancement technology (CET), such as bike accident prevention systems, it can be challenging to test and evaluate them properly. After all, the real-world scenario could endanger the subjects’ health and safety. Therefore, a simulator is needed, preferably o...

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Main Authors: Schöning, Julius, Kettler, Jan, Jäger, Milena I., Gunia, Artur
Format: Online Article Text
Language:English
Published: MDPI 2023
Subjects:
Online Access:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10098922/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37050732
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/s23073672
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author Schöning, Julius
Kettler, Jan
Jäger, Milena I.
Gunia, Artur
author_facet Schöning, Julius
Kettler, Jan
Jäger, Milena I.
Gunia, Artur
author_sort Schöning, Julius
collection PubMed
description While developing traffic-based cognitive enhancement technology (CET), such as bike accident prevention systems, it can be challenging to test and evaluate them properly. After all, the real-world scenario could endanger the subjects’ health and safety. Therefore, a simulator is needed, preferably one that is realistic yet low cost. This paper introduces a way to use the video game Grand Theft Auto V (GTA V) and its sophisticated traffic system as a base to create such a simulator, allowing for the safe and realistic testing of dangerous traffic situations involving cyclists, cars, and trucks. The open world of GTA V, which can be explored on foot and via various vehicles, serves as an immersive stand-in for the real world. Custom modification scripts of the game give the researchers control over the experiment scenario and the output data to be evaluated. An off-the-shelf bicycle equipped with three sensors serves as a realistic input device for the subject’s movement direction and speed. The simulator was used to test two early-stage CET concepts enabling cyclists to sense dangerous traffic situations, such as trucks approaching from behind the cyclist. Thus, this paper also presents the user evaluation of the cycling simulator and the CET used by the subjects to sense dangerous traffic situations. With the knowledge of the first iteration of the user-centered design (UCD) process, this paper concludes by naming improvements for the cycling simulator and discussing further research directions for CET that enable users to sense dangerous situations better.
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spelling pubmed-100989222023-04-14 Grand Theft Auto-Based Cycling Simulator for Cognitive Enhancement Technologies in Dangerous Traffic Situations Schöning, Julius Kettler, Jan Jäger, Milena I. Gunia, Artur Sensors (Basel) Article While developing traffic-based cognitive enhancement technology (CET), such as bike accident prevention systems, it can be challenging to test and evaluate them properly. After all, the real-world scenario could endanger the subjects’ health and safety. Therefore, a simulator is needed, preferably one that is realistic yet low cost. This paper introduces a way to use the video game Grand Theft Auto V (GTA V) and its sophisticated traffic system as a base to create such a simulator, allowing for the safe and realistic testing of dangerous traffic situations involving cyclists, cars, and trucks. The open world of GTA V, which can be explored on foot and via various vehicles, serves as an immersive stand-in for the real world. Custom modification scripts of the game give the researchers control over the experiment scenario and the output data to be evaluated. An off-the-shelf bicycle equipped with three sensors serves as a realistic input device for the subject’s movement direction and speed. The simulator was used to test two early-stage CET concepts enabling cyclists to sense dangerous traffic situations, such as trucks approaching from behind the cyclist. Thus, this paper also presents the user evaluation of the cycling simulator and the CET used by the subjects to sense dangerous traffic situations. With the knowledge of the first iteration of the user-centered design (UCD) process, this paper concludes by naming improvements for the cycling simulator and discussing further research directions for CET that enable users to sense dangerous situations better. MDPI 2023-03-31 /pmc/articles/PMC10098922/ /pubmed/37050732 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/s23073672 Text en © 2023 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Schöning, Julius
Kettler, Jan
Jäger, Milena I.
Gunia, Artur
Grand Theft Auto-Based Cycling Simulator for Cognitive Enhancement Technologies in Dangerous Traffic Situations
title Grand Theft Auto-Based Cycling Simulator for Cognitive Enhancement Technologies in Dangerous Traffic Situations
title_full Grand Theft Auto-Based Cycling Simulator for Cognitive Enhancement Technologies in Dangerous Traffic Situations
title_fullStr Grand Theft Auto-Based Cycling Simulator for Cognitive Enhancement Technologies in Dangerous Traffic Situations
title_full_unstemmed Grand Theft Auto-Based Cycling Simulator for Cognitive Enhancement Technologies in Dangerous Traffic Situations
title_short Grand Theft Auto-Based Cycling Simulator for Cognitive Enhancement Technologies in Dangerous Traffic Situations
title_sort grand theft auto-based cycling simulator for cognitive enhancement technologies in dangerous traffic situations
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10098922/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37050732
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/s23073672
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