Human balance control ability for affinitive personal vehicle

Abstract

Recently personal vehicles have received a lot of attention to expand our mobility for low carbon society and diversification of individual mobility. So far several small vehicles have been developed. However a new thesis of designing and controlling personal vehicles is required, because there are some difference between general vehicle-used environment and personal vehicle-used environment like mixed traffic. In such new kinds of environment, vehicles should have close relationship with drivers. To have closer relationship, personal vehicles must be smaller and lighter. In addition, psychological and biological status should be considered to control vehicles, but there is few method to measure and estimate such status. The authors define such personal vehicles as Affinitive Personal Vehicle and try to estimate balance control ability of driver. In this study, the authors focus on vehicle's posture and body sway of a driver to observe driver's status and get some knowledge on balance control ability.