Abstract
Research and /or Engineering Questions/Objective
The functionalities of ADAS, applied by an ever increasing number of control units, however result in additional complexity in the development process, which must be handled. Nevertheless many questions already arise in a very early phase of development, in particular in the interaction with the actual utilization profile, such as route, driver and environment characteristics in the various target regions of the future vehicle. This article shows new ways and methods of how the functions and total vehicle characteristics can be evaluated in virtual driving tests in the early phase of development.
Methodology
Unlike existing methods, the concept integrates a full vehicle being operated in the real world into a virtual environmental simulation. This fusion poses a major challenge in this context, as the physical control units of the vehicle have to be supplied with the wide range of virtual sensor signals in real-time to allow them to respond as if they were receiving the information directly from physical sensors. In the actual test drive, the physical vehicle is being operated in an empty, open real-world area. To create the traffic scenarios that are relevant to testing ADAS, the required virtual road-users are generated in the environmental simulation. Users can create the test scenario at their own discretion, and reproduce or modify the scenario.
Results
In this simulation, all of the traffic scenarios which are necessary to evaluate ADAS can be represented and tested in virtual test driving. One of the advantage is the possibility of the real-world test driver performing the “subjective evaluation” (of acceleration, forces etc.) in the physical vehicle. During the virtual test drive, the virtual road-users are captured by the virtual sensors, which forward their information, such as the distance to the car or the preceding vehicle, to the real-world control unit under test. A prototypical, full working set-up exists for the testing environment of a parking assistance system since summer 2013.
Limitations of this study:
Currently the test method was realized and validated for the parking assistance. New applications are planned like emergency braking systems and subsystems with a view to autonomous driving.
What does the paper offer that is new in the field in comparison to other works of the author
It shows a new concept positioning the car in the virtual world and a new method for the communication between virtual sensors and real control units.
Conclusion
The aim is to save resources and enhance efficiency in the development process. The novel test system also can contribute to this aim, as valid and, even more importantly, reproducible test results can be generated in a relatively short period of time.
KEYWORDS – Vehicle-in-the-Loop, Simulation, ADAS, Testing, Virtual Environment