A review of driver modelling

Increasingly accurate vehicle simulations are required by automotive manufacturers and researchers in order to develop new ideas while minimising the use of costly prototype vehicles. The development in vehicle simulations has been the focus of much research; however the progress of driver modelling development for use in these simulations has not been as rapid. In areas such as fuel economy it has been shown that the behaviour of the driver plays a significant role and as such a vehicle simulation used to investigate fuel economy should include a driver model that can mimic different driver behaviour. Historically fuel economy simulations have been undertaken with a reference speed profile followed accurately with classical closed loop control and this approach will neglect some of the characteristics of real world driving that come from having a human driver. In this paper the development of driver modelling will be summarised up to the current state of the art and further applications for driver models are detailed.