UR:BAN – the Akronym for "Urbaner Raum: Benutzergerechte Assistenzsysteme und Netzmanagement" (Urban space: User-friendly Assistant Systems and Networks) is a research initiative. It brings together 20 partners, out of research and industry.

Driving assistant systems

Actual driving systems are mainly used on highways. They are highly accepted by the drivers and mostly seen as useful.

Urban traffic scenarios meet special challenges concerning technical systems, coordination and acceptance by the drivers.The time to override the technical system by the human driver is much shorter in urban scenarios than on highways.
But not only the time to override but the time to recognize a possible failiure of the assistant system is critical. So new challenges for the usability and technical systems are opened and must be conceptualized.

As driving in urban scenarios is nearly unpredictable and therefore not useful for explorative studies we will integrate two or more simulators (truck and car) in a network. Scenarios could be developed and tested without any risk for others. Interactions of the urban traffic is only limited by the number of driving simulators connected to the network.
We are also working on the integration in real time of a human person via motion tracker in the driving simulator‘s virtual scenery.

Target

To akquire data of effects of driving with different assistant systems within urban scenarios, we will connect several driving simulators in a network. New scenarios and new measures must be set up without risk for human beings.