Thank you for your interest in the National Advanced Driving Simulator (NADS) and the NADS miniSim™ driving simulators!
miniSim Tech. Description miniSim Overview miniSim Examples
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The miniSim™ driving simulator is based on the software our team developed for the NADS-1 research simulator, now available for research and commercial applications through the miniSim program. Backed by decades of development and human-factors research experience, the miniSim is sophisticated and affordable. A common code base and tools are used across all our simulators, so a scenario developed on the miniSim will run on other miniSim systems, or NADS-1/NADS-2 and vice-versa.
The miniSim hardware configurations include desktop or quarter-cab with a single Windows PC. Displays are typically panels but projection systems with flat and curved screens are available. We also build larger simulators with complex display and cab systems. Built-in automation simplifies investigation of human-automation interaction at a variety of automation levels. The miniSim can also be linked with external automation for testing and product development.
The miniSim consists of four core tools:
- Tile Mosaic Tool (TMT) for assembling a road network from a library of over 250 road/landscape segments called ‘tiles’. You use the TMT to connect them and export a complete database to the ISAT and miniSim. NADS can also create new tiles or modify existing ones to meet your specific needs.
- Interactive Scenario Authoring Tool (ISAT) for building scenarios on the assembled network. The ISAT is GUI-driven and does not require scripting.
- miniSim runs the scenario on the assembled database and provides both real-time measures and a comprehensive data acquisition file in a secure binary format for post-processing.
- nDaqTools are NADS-designed interfaces for Matlab used to identify the measures to be calculated, and to organize and control the data reduction process.
Additional Tools include:
- ACC and Lane Following systems are commonly used to emulate level 2 automation and hand-off of control. ACC parameters are adjustable including full-range speed control.
- LKA and LDW systems are built-in, and parameters are adjustable. The LKA system provides torque cues through the steering loader.
- NADS AutoDriver is an automated driving capability incorporated into the NADSDyna vehicle dynamics software to take over operation of the steer, gas and brake controls to autonomously follow a route through the world. The characteristics of the 12 available behaviors (lane change, turns, etc.) are controlled through a set of parameter files and a command vocabulary that may be given through the following mechanisms:
- Scenario action (triggered by scenario event)
- Manual action (button press)
- External input via UDP
- Virtual World API is a programmer interface to extract road and scenario-object information in real-time when provided with the location of the driver’s own-vehicle.
- External Control gives the advanced user remote control over the driver controls for autonomous system testing and development. Currently UDP interface. ROS interface under development.
- Web Socket and UDP interfaces allow integration with external systems and displays, such as Haptic Seats, touchscreens, etc.
- Analog and Digital I/O is used to integrate driver controls and also trigger or synchronize external devices such as alerts or physiological data collection systems (Biopac, EEG, etc).
- NADS Infotainment systems emulate OEM-style infotainment interfaces while providing data acquisition and operator control.
- NADS VidCap video recording system captures 4 channels of HD digital video synchronized with the simulation
- User-Defined Subsystems are user-written programs that run within the miniSim real-time environment and have read/write access to the shared memory space.
We also provide the following services:
- Prompt, in-depth user support
- Custom scenario development
- Custom virtual environments and models
- Turn-key experiments
- Simulator Upgrades
- Custom simulator design and development
- User Training
- Consulting