The bridge of the dynamic driving simulator is lowered into the floor, the Dynamic Driving Simulator then startsDynamic driving simulator in motionThe motion system of the dynamic driving simulatorProjection dome in the dynamic driving simulatorThe BMW 5 Series on a “city trip”A look over the driver’s shoulder during travel with the Head-Up Display, with the”Left Turn Assistant” faded in. Head-Up Display information in the projection. *Side view to the front while using Head-Up Display during travel

Control room employees from the outside with mirror image of the dynamic driving simulatorControl room with control monitors Control monitor with driving BMW 5 Series and Head-Up Display information faded inBlack and white control monitor with driver of the BMW 5 Series

Control roomFunctional model during an overland trip with the Head-Up Display information of the driver assistance system “Stop Sign Assistant”.

BMW Group is running driving simulation for more than 15 years in the car development process. In the beginning there was no representation of motion to the driver. That's to say the perception of motion of the car was only by visual perception. In the development of driver assistance systems, the quick recognition of motion is a very important issue. As the perception of the eye, of the motion by the eye, is quite slow, a representation of motion is very important. With the new dynamic driving simulator we have got this additional information, that’s to say, the driver is exposed to motion according to the vehicle. For example accelerations of the car are perceived by being pressed in the seat and by this get a quick and good information of dynamics.The advantages of the new dynamic driving simulator are the big motion system on the one hand and the projection dome with the high grade projection system on the other hand. The driver is exposed to wide field of view to the front. The rear view to the scenery he can see looking at the three rear view mirrors. In the scenery itself there is a complex traffic with which we can adjust different situations. The motion system enables us to represent the longitudinal and lateral accelerations he needs for driving as well as the roughness of the road are exposed by small vibrations. To complete the perception, sound simulation is integrated to the driving simulation. All these components, which are perfectly adjusted, finally lead to a perfect representation of the environment, that's to say, the driver behaves just as on the road.The quality of the driving simulation is finally judged by the question whether the driver behaves as on the real road, that's to say, he is exposed to an environment just as in reality. This is not only a question of the assembly of different sense cues, but especially the perfect adjustment of all these cues to finally lead to a perfect driving simulation environment.With the new dynamic driving simulator we've got an additional tool in the virtual development process of cars. We've got the opportunity of subjectively experiencing systems long before a prototype is available on the real road. With this we can decrease the time of development and increase the quality of systems that we finally get into the prototype cars for further examinations on the road.The dynamic driving simulator is the most complex driving simulator of BMW Group. For a lot of applications there is only low level representation of motion necessary to the driver. These applications are done on fixed base simulators. In case of driver assistance systems usually very high requirement to motion perception has to be fulfilled. These investigations are done on the dynamic driving simulator.One of the most recent projects is the research project of the left turn assistant. The aim of this project is to prevent the driver from having accidents with the oncoming traffic while turning to the left. There are either states of warning, that's to say, the driver is warned when the oncoming traffic is not seen or in case of directly starting at the crossing and having not seen the oncoming traffic, the car is kept still at the point.