MRI Track 1: Acquisition of an Extended Reality-Based Driving Simulator for User-Centered Interdisciplinary Research and Education at Montclair State University

This Major Research Instrumentation (MRI) award supports the acquisition of a state-of-the-art extended reality-based driving (XR-Drive) simulator to enhance user-centered interdisciplinary research and education at Montclair State University. The project will enable an immersive simulation of various driving scenarios as well as the safe engagement of humans in a large true-to-life virtual environment via driving, a skill highly desired in daily life. The requested instrument can contribute to advancing diverse scientific areas by addressing multifaceted questions in driving, which call for research activities from intelligent systems, psychology, motor control, social science, and urban planning. The research activities enabled by the instrument can benefit society by fostering interdisciplinary innovation related to multimodal human-vehicle interaction. The requested instrument will also support a wide range of interdisciplinary education activities spanning eight departments across five colleges and schools at Montclair State University. Furthermore, it can expand the education capacities of Montclair and the connection between higher education and local K-12 communities to cultivate future talent with interdisciplinary skills.The XR-Drive simulator can replicate immersive and realistic driving scenarios in a safe, interactive, and programmable form. It includes an immersive audio-visual system generating driving-related visual information as well as synchronized auditory information to enhance realism and immersion. The powerful driving operation units and motion base allow users to have realistic vehicle driving experiences. A set of high-performance computing units installed with versatile software enables programmable vehicle control as well as customizable simulation of driving conditions. The integration with extended reality technologies can enhance the delivery of an immersive and realistic driving experience to users. It further benefits accurate user data acquisition to advance scientific and engineering studies. These features will be important for the following research activities (1) intelligent sensing, computation, and control for interactive vehicles; (2) cognitive psychology and spatial cognition in driving; (3) visual attention and motor performance in driving; (4) human and social factors in intelligent vehicles; and (5) experiential and embodied learning in STEM. The interdisciplinary nature of the XR-Drive simulator will advance multiple academic disciplines at Montclair State University, contributing to the development of human-centered interaction technologies.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.