# Driving Simulator Core

> **NIH NIH P30** · NORTH DAKOTA STATE UNIVERSITY · 2020 · $34,961

## Abstract

The Driving Simulator Core (DSC) provides the faculty and students of the CVCN, the Department of
Psychology, NDSU as a whole, visual and cognitive neuroscience researchers in the region, and COBRE
investigators in other IDeA states, access to a state-of-the-art driving simulator facility. The DSC is based on a
DriveSafety DS-600c research driving simulator. The DS-600c includes a realistic vehicle cabin consisting of
driver and passenger seats, a center console, a fully instrumented dashboard, a rearview mirror display, and
controls for steering, braking, and acceleration. The cabin is mounted on a three degrees-of-freedom motion
platform in order to simulate the motions associated with driving (acceleration, deceleration, road roughness).
The simulated driving environment is imaged onto five 65” high-definition LED/LCD screens that provide over
180o view, and is displayed on three mini-LCD screens mounted on the rear-view and side mirrors.
DriveSafety's HyperDrive Authoring Suite is used to model complex driving scenarios and to precisely control
the presentation of stimuli within the simulated environment giving researchers full control over the
environment, objects, and events that might influence the driver's behavior. The actual simulation is computer
controlled using DriveSafety's Vection software, which controls updating of the displays, and also enables real-
time data collection on several performance measures. The state of all vehicle controls and instruments is
sampled at a rate of 60 Hz during simulations, enabling detailed analysis of driving-related behaviors.
Moreover, response buttons on the steering wheel and center console facilitate the collection of data relevant
for psychological research, such as speeded responses to events in the simulated environment. Additionally, a
FaceLAB eyetracker (a component of the Eye Tracking Core supported during Phases I and II) mounted on the
dashboard is used to compute point-of-gaze, within and outside the cab, as participants drive the simulated
vehicle. For ethanol intoxication paradigms, the DSC has an Intoxilyzer 5000 (CMI, Inc), a current evidentiary-
level blood alcohol content (BAC) analyzer, for accurate BAC measurement. The DSC also has AN/PVS-7B
series night vision goggles for the study their limitations on acuity, depth perception, and distance estimation.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 9983092
- **Project number:** 5P30GM114748-05
- **Recipient organization:** NORTH DAKOTA STATE UNIVERSITY
- **Principal Investigator:** MARK E. McCourt
- **Activity code:** P30 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** $34,961
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2016-08-01 → 2023-07-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/9983092

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 9983092, Driving Simulator Core (5P30GM114748-05). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-23 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/9983092. Licensed CC0.

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