Local stability conditions and calibrating procedure for new car-following models used in driving simulators

Abstract: The Intelligent Driver Model is studied and several drawbacks with respect to driving simulators are defined. We present two modifications of the IDM. The first one gives any predefined distance to the leading vehicle in a steady state. The second modification is a combination of the first one and the optimal velocity model. It takes into account drivers reaction time explicitly and is described by delay differential equation. This model always results in realistic vehicles accelerations what allows simulating real traffic collisions. Necessary and sufficient conditions are obtained, that guarantee a non-oscillating solution near the equilibrium for the vehicle platoon. We suggest the calibrating framework based on a numerical solution of the constrained optimization problem. Nonlinear constraints are generated by the numerical integration scheme. The suggested procedure incorporates the local stability conditions obtained and takes into account vehicle dynamics, drivers behavior and weather conditions.