Chapter 4: The Simple Unstable Vehicle: a manual control task

Chapter overview and links to contents

The first section deals with formulaic rules for controlling the SUV simulation, which have either a qulaitative character, or otherwise could be closer to the way a human would control such a system that the control engineering approach, which is not discussed.

4.1 Testing control rules for the SUV
4.1.1 Description of the operation of the test program
4.1.2 Results and discussion

Then, an attempt was made to study live human control of the simulation, to see what similarities there might be.

4.2 Aims of the human control experiment

4.3 Method and results
4.3.1 The interface
4.3.2 Collection of data
4.3.3 Processing of data
4.3.3.1 Control as handlebar angle setting
4.3.3.2 Control as setting the rate of handlebar movement
4.3.4 Comparison with hand-written control rules

The problems with this experiment in terms of the objectives of the thesis are covered in this last section.

4.4 Discussion
4.4.1 Problems in the experimental design
4.4.2 Manual control as a hindrance
4.4.3 Implications for this study