A tractor driving simulator, developed at the University of Manitoba, is helping researchers improve the ergonomic design of self propelled agricultural equipment equipped with global positioning system, or GPS, technology.
The application of global positioning system technology to agriculture has resulted in the introduction of several new technologies, including auto-steer systems intended to help drivers minimize driving errors.
To improve the integration of these technologies into equipment designs researchers with the University of Manitoba's Faculty of Agricultural and Food Sciences have developed a tractor driving simulator.
Biosystems engineering professor Dr. Danny Mann says the goal is to improve the design of the control and display systems.
Clip-Dr. Danny Mann-University of Manitoba
For the past five to six years there's been a fair bit of work in my lab in trying to develop this driving simulator to get to the point where we feel that it is a realistic representation of a tractor driving through the field.
I've just, over the past couple of years, finished quite an in-depth analysis of this simulator and we've added features such as visual field of view, virtual field of view would be a way to describe it.
We've added motion so that the driver who's in this simulator gets the impression that the vehicle is turning as steering corrections are made on the steering wheel.
We've also investigated the possibility of adding auditory cues, background tractor noise and so on to the simulator, all of these in order to make the environment as realistic as possible.
Dr. Mann hopes there will be interest from machinery manufacturers in making use of the research resulting from using the simulator or in partnering on additional research to improve the design of their equipment.
He notes there is already commercial interest being expressed in the simulator