Development, Control, and Evaluation of an Actuated Car Door

Area of Science:

• Robotics and Mechatronics
• Human-Computer Interaction
• Automotive Engineering

Background:

• Actuated car doors aim to improve vehicle accessibility and user experience.
• Integrating automated systems into conventional car doors presents challenges in control and user interaction.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and evaluate an advanced actuation and control concept for conventional car doors.
• To achieve safe automatic operation and a supportive, high-quality haptic interaction for manual door handling.

Main Methods:

• Utilized a linear, nonbackdrivable actuator and sensors for automatic and manual door control.
• Implemented impedance control, specifically actuator force feedback, to render desired door dynamics for manual operation.
• Conducted two experimental evaluations with 43 participants to assess user experience and system performance.

Main Results:

• Impedance control with actuator force feedback demonstrated superior performance in providing desired haptic feedback.
• The proposed system enabled both safe automatic opening/closing and intuitive manual door handling.
• Experimental evaluations showed predominant user approval of the actuated car door system.

Conclusions:

• The developed actuation and control concept is a viable solution for enhancing car door convenience and usability.
• Impedance control is effective for simulating desired dynamics in scenarios where direct force measurement is impractical.
• The actuated car door system offers a promising approach to improving vehicle accessibility and user satisfaction.