Despite its great technical and social significance, the modeling of human behaviours remains one of the greatest challenges in science and technology development. A driver behaviour model is an essential component in a driving simulator, an autonomous vehicle, and an intelligent transportation system. It is known that driver behaviours are highly nonlinear, uncertain, and random, which challenges many scientific disciplines such as psychology for exploring first principles that govern behaviours. In addition, driver mental states, yet another mysterious entity, contribute to the driver behaviour.

     In this seminar, the speaker will present a study toward a new model of the driver behaviour with consideration of driver-vehicle and driver-environment interactions. It is proposed to apply the artificial neural network technique for modeling the driver handing behaviour and to apply fuzzy logic together with physiological parameters for modeling the driver mental state. The model for the driver mental state is incorporated into the framework of artificial neural network to result in a driver behaviour model. The experiment validated this model. Further, the driver behaviour model is integrated with the vehicle dynamic model, which results in a model for the driver-vehicle-environment closed-loop system, and this model was experimentally validated.

     The speaker will also give an overview of her previous and on-going research projects in general human factors area, in particular: (1) non-intrusive human sensing and measurement technology; (2) multi- modality information fusion; and (3) interface design and measurement toward an adaptive interface.

     Dr. Yingzi Lin is currently an Assistant Professor with the Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, Northeastern University, Boston, where she directs the Intelligent Human-Machine Systems Laboratory. She received a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from the University of Saskatchewan (Canada) in 2003. She received another Ph.D. in vehicle engineering from China Agricultural University in 1997. During 2004-2005 she was an Assistant Professor with Concordia Institute for Information Systems Engineering at Concordia University (Canada). Her research has been funded by Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada and industries. She has published over 40 technical papers in referred journals and conferences. Her current research focus includes: driver- vehicle systems, human-centered intelligent machine systems, non- intrusive sensor development, multimodality information fusion for inferring human state and emotion, human machine interface design, and human friendly mechatronics. She is a member of IEEE, HFES, SAE and IIE.