Abstract
Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS), that will be introduced into the market in the near future, will offer preventive safety and new standards of comfort in future cars.
The most outstanding issue for car manufacturers will be the complete analysis of aspects/concepts related to ADAS systems, in order to avoid any misuse or disadvantage, through an advanced evaluation procedure. This advanced procedure will includes different levels of investigation: from the identification of the methodology to the system technical validation, to the user acceptance investigation at marketing level.
The technical validation methodology will be the contents of this paper, in which the recent experiences carried out in Fiat Auto - together with Centro Ricerche Fiat and Elasis - for validating the Adaptive Cruise Control (ACC) will be presented. The paper will include a short description of the necessary competencies within the car manufacturing company that have to be involved to design, develop and apply the process of technical verification and validation, and will summarise the most significant results achieved. A new, innovative approach to make more objective vehicle testing will be also presented.