Efficacy of Haptic Pedal Feel Compensation on Driving With Regenerative Braking

In this article, we study the efficacy of haptic pedal feel compensation on driving safety and performance during regenerative braking. In particular, we evaluate the effectiveness of the preservation of the natural brake pedal feel under two-pedal cooperative braking and one-pedal driving scenarios, through human subject experiments in a simulated vehicle pursuit task. The experimental results indicate that pedal feel compensation can significantly decrease the hard braking instances, improving safety for both two-pedal cooperative braking and one-pedal driving conditions. Volunteers strongly prefer compensation, while they equally prefer and can effectively utilize two-pedal and one-pedal driving conditions. The beneficial effects of haptic pedal feel compensation on safety is evaluated to be larger for the two-pedal cooperative braking condition, as lack of compensation results in stiffening/softening pedal feel characteristics in this case.