Research on Driving Assistance of Electric Cart Using Low-Speed Mode

概要

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Accidents of electric carts by the elderly persons increase rapidly. One of the reasons of them is lack of recognition of risks in surrounding circumstance. To prevent such accidents, an automatic support system of driving electric carts is considered. In the proposed system, when a step or a gap in front of an electric cart is detected by a laser range finder installed to the cart, a method named "low speed mode", which changes the region between maximum speed and minimum speed into lower speed level, is introduced. Time margin for the operation to avoid upcoming risks can be expected using "low speed mode". Impressions of drivers to the speed change when shifting from normal speed mode to low speed mode are examined by the psychological evaluations. Furthermore, experiments are conducted to examine whether the speed change can play the role to warn the upcoming risks to the driver.