Development of a driving simulator for telematics human-machine interface studies

Driving simulators are useful tools not only to test the components of future cars but also to evaluate the telematics service and human-machine interface (HMI). However, driving simulators available at present cannot be implemented to test and evaluate the telematics service system as the global positioning system (GPS), which contains basic functional support for the telematics module, does not work in the virtual reality environment. In this paper, a GPS simulator is developed which is able to emulate GPS satellite signals, consisting of the NMEA-0183 protocol and RS232C communication standards, and thereby presenting a method of implementing a telematics service for a driving simulator. It is expected that the driving simulator, together with the GPS simulator, can be used to study the HMI for evaluation of commercial telematics systems in order to realize the human-in-the-loop evaluation systems.