18-year-old student sets up computer programme to test disabled drivers

Press, 18 April 1979, Page 21

18-year-old student sets up computer programme to test disabled drivers

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NEILL BIRSS

Programming a computer so that it can simulate driving conditions has been the successful task of lan Viney, an 18-year-old computer science" student at the University of Canterbury.

His project is part of the Christchurch Hospital's driving assessment and training programme and when completed will economically create another use for the Department of Radiotherapy’s treatment-planning PDP 11/40 computer. It will be transferred soon to a new and similar computer in the Neurology Department; it is being partly paid f.or with an Accident Compensation Commission grant. The driving simulation will be in the offroad section of the project, and run by the Occupational Therapy Department under the control of Mr Richard Jones, a biomedical engineer of the hospital’s medical physics department. The object of the project is to assess the driving ability of patients discharged from hospital when there is some form of disability, and especially when impairment from some form of brain damage is sus-. pected. Ultimately it is hoped that the driving simulation will be part of this evaluation. but development

has some way to go yet. At present it is a bargain road version of the aircraft simulator used by Air New Zealand trained pilots, without, of course such sophistication as a module that moves with simulated changes. At present the computer’s graphic display projects a road that comes toward the “driver.” The road is drawn in with a light pen by the supervisor or therapist. Corners and stop signs can be

added, and there are telegraph poles to give a three-dimensional effect and the illusion of varying speeds. The "driver” sits behind a steering wheel much as in a normal car and follows the road. His performance eventually will be monitored by the computer and such mishaps as hitting poles or leaving the road will appear on the print-out after the test. The speed is controlled by the supervisor; a footcontrol accelerator has yet to be developed. And the road is entirely fiat. The PDPII/40 does not process fast enough to enable hills to be included, for the computer works out what is coming ahead and translates this on to the

screen; to work out what was coming up behind hills would be beyond its powers. And the steering wheel does not yet centre itself after corners. However, it is adaptable enough. The instructor can reverse the course, and suddenly you are “driving” past a stop sign or corner that was on the other side of the road a few minutes before. It can even “fly” above the road, giving the “driver” an aerial view.

Simple driving simulators would use film to project what was coming. But in this case everything is worked out by the processor. The project has been partly financed by a grant from the Canterbury Medical Research Foundation. Programming work was started in 1977-78 by another Canterbury University student, Mr Stephen Taylor, but Mr Viney has got it working. About two years of development remains. Mr Jones and Mr Viney believe that it is the first time that suph a simulation technique has been developed on a mini-com-puter.

“And in this case we are using a generalpurposes computer that does other things as well,” says Mr Jones. He describes Mr Viney’s programming as a major feat. lan Viney is in his stage-three year of a B.Sc. honours degree. He began university studies last year at stage-two level: he had begun computer studies at Christchurch Boys’ High School al. the end of the fifth form.

His programming work has been in Fortran and in the computer’s own language. The work entailed scores of hours of programming and reprogramming as errors were successively corrected.

When fully developed, the simulator will not replace a final road test, says Mr Jones, but it will be a great help in evaluation.

Other uses may be wide. Driving instruction and teaching road-safety rules are two obvious ones. The driver simulation project is part of the offroad testing section of the hospital’s driving assessment and training programme. Other sections of the testing are: sight testing; reaction tests using a set of car foot-pedals connected to an electronic re-

action timer; and another test using the PDPII/40 computer. This computer test invloves the patient using the steering wheel attachment to maintain an arrow on a moving path. Mistakes are recorded and allow measurement of arm control, co-ordination, and concentration.

Part of the programme makes use of a Hospital Board car which has automatic gears, hand controls. and other adaptations of use to the disabled. or of the patient's own car.

Some drivers are given further training by occupational therapists after the tests, but it is hoped that this task will later be transferred to a driving school, under hospital supervision.

Up to March, the ability of 80 persons had been assessed. Ages varied from 15 to 86, and causes of impairment ranged from head injury, to arthritis,

though most were of neurological origin. Most referrals for testing were from Christchurch Hospital and Prin-

cess Margaret Hospital, but several were from outside organisations such as the Rehabilitation League. Of the 80, nine required

further training. Results of the test are given to the patients and to those who referred them for assessment.