UMTRI Project

Field of View in Mirrors

Sponsor:
Investigator: Matthew Reed
00/00/0000 - 00/00/0000

Federal safety rules require the mirrors on passenger cars and light trucks to provide certain minimum fields of view, but the manner in which the mirrors are aimed can substantially affect the functional fields of view. In this study, the fields of view provided by interior and exterior mirrors were quantified for passenger car and light truck drivers in their own vehicles. A FARO Arm coordinate digitizer was used to record driver eye locations as the driver looked at each mirror. The mirror perimeters and other vehicle geometry were recorded in the same coordinate system, and a ray-tracing method was used to calculate the fields of view provided by each mirror. The resulting data are valuable for quantifying the potential advantage of changing mirror designs or supplementing mirrors with camera-based indirect vision systems. A similar study was conducted for drivers of Class-7 and Class-8 heavy trucks. Data were gathered at a truck stop to quantify indirect vision for drivers of tractor-trailer combinations.