Driving simulators play an important role in vehicle research. However, existing virtual reality simulators do not give users a true sense of presence. UniNet is our driving simulator, designed to allow users to interact with and visualize simulated traffic in mixed reality. It is powered by SUMO and Unity. UniNet's modular architecture allows us to investigate interdisciplinary research topics such as vehicular ad-hoc networks, human-computer interaction, and traffic management. We accomplish this by giving users the ability to observe and interact with simulated traffic in a high fidelity driving simulator. We present a user study that subjectively measures user's sense of presence in UniNet. Our findings suggest that our novel mixed reality system does increase this sensation. Many driving simulators have been developed, with most of them being used for driver training or research in the field of driver safety [44] . However, these simulators often present limited features in regards to traffic simulation, and user presence [11, 25, 26] . The need for high-quality Virtual Reality (VR) driving simulators with a focus on user presence is long overdue. In addition to this, a driving simulator with traffic simulation is a strong tool for Vehicular Ad-Hoc Network (VANET) research, which is made possible by our choice of traffic generation software. Network simulation is commonly used in networking research, to evaluate the performance of communication protocols and algorithms. Existing simulation tools for vehicular networks focus exclusively on network simulation. A driving simulator that combines network simulation, application prototyping, and testing would be beneficial Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than the author(s) must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from permissions@acm.org. to VANET researchers. For instance, one could evaluate the performance of a communication protocol or application by using a realistic virtual environment with thousands of vehicles and interacting with them before deploying their research in the real world, which is costly, and at times, unsafe. In addition to a modular simulator with VANET capabilities, we introduce a system for Mixed Reality (MR). Our system introduces the user as their own avatar in a virtual environment, by using stereoscopic cameras and passthrough VR technology. We designed the system to be compatible with existing VR systems, and most VR systems can easily upgrade to our proposed immersion configuration. In this paper, we describe UniNet -a driving simulator that combines realistic vehicle dynamics [42] with a high performance traffic flow simulation platform Simulation of Urban MObility (SUMO) [27] . We discuss the systems we have built within Unity [40] , which connect external applications for a high quality driving experience. In our user study, we followed a within-subjects experimental design, to test if UniNet's MR immersion system improved the user's sense of presence in the virtual environment. We are able to show that the MR configuration is more immersive, however the results are primarily subjective, and come from the questionnaires we chose to include in our study. Our study produced two types of results for each participant. Subjective results, and behavioural results based on reactions to vehicle collision events. Our analysis of the subjective results supported our hypothesis, however we could not draw any conclusions from the behavioural results. Insko writes that, due to presence being a subjective sensation, subjective means of measuring presence have become the most popular [20] . Therefore our inability to corroborate the results from our questionnaires with the behavioural measurements taken, does not disprove our hypothesis. The in-simulator portion of the study contained four trials, designed to compare four configurations of UniNet, and instigate visceral reactions which we measured as reaction times. The reason we chose to compare four configurations, was to compare common existing options for VR simulations, and a non-VR control with our technology. In summary, here is a brief description of why we chose these four immersion configurations. As the market for VR continues to grow, the development of MR technology should grow with it. The reality-virtuality continuum is defined by the mixed-reality area between reality and virtuality, and UniNet was designed to fit within this range. This thesis focused on the effect of user presence in a MR driving simulator, and the construction of a physical product. The user study investigated the effect of our MR immersion configuration, on user presence. The user study hypothesized that our MR configuration would increase the user's sense of presence in the virtual environment, when compared to traditional VR and non-VR configurations. Participants were presented with four trials to complete in UniNet, and each trial finished with a vehicle collision event to create a behavioural response from participants. The subjective results were significant, and in favor of our study's hypothesis. Prior to the study, we designed and tested the hardware and software for UniNet. Unity and SUMO are the primary systems controlling player vehicles and NPC vehicles respectively. Our technology is built to work with the Oculus Rift, using commercially available stereoscopic cameras mounted to the front face of the HMD. Our software creates a passthrough VR experience with this hardware configuration. When combined with the green screen chamber constructed for UniNet, our technology fits on the reality-virtuality continuum as a unique mixed reality experience.
A mixed reality driving simulator using stereo cameras and passthrough VR evaluated in a user study with 24 participants. Proposes a complicated system for driving simulation. This paper presents a mixed reality driving simulator setup to enhance the sensation of presence Proposes a mixed reality driving simulator that incorporates traffic generation and claims an enhanced "presence" due to an MR system.