Today, we have an arguably more reasonable demand: “Where’s my driverless car?”
Although the challenges of making an autonomous vehicle are generally more tractable than those of making a flying one—whether technological or legislative—one challenge they share in common is testing. Whether it’s taking flight or driving itself (or both), no one wants to ride in a vehicle that hasn’t been thoroughly vetted.
That’s why four German companies—Konrad Technologies GmbH, SET GmbH, S.E.A. Datentechnik GmbH, measX GmbH & Co. KG—have formed a collaboration to develop testing solutions for advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) based on standardized National Instruments platforms.
- Hardware in the Loop (HiL)
- Sensor Simulation
- Vehicle-to-Infrastructure (V2X) and Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) Simulation
- Data Management
“The demand for fully autonomous vehicles requires efficient test systems not just for RADAR or LIDAR sensors, but a Sensor Fusion technique that synchronously combines inputs from all car sensors,” said Michael Konrad, managing director of Konrad Technologies GmbH.
“A combination of these technologies with HiL, V2X and highly efficient data management systems will go a long way to set very high standards in the automotive industry.”
Frank Heidemann, managing director of SET GmbH cited real test drives as highly time-consuming, requiring an excessive amount of test driver resources and lacking 100-percent repeatability. Heidemann foresees virtual test drives as essential for testing today’s sensors and sensor fusion electronic control units (ECU).
Dr. Gerd Schmitz, managing director of S.E.A. Datentechnik GmbH, believes V2X is becoming an integrated part of future vehicles and ADAS systems. “Testing along the development chain requires the in-depth expertise of RF and V2X protocols,” he said, “as well as system interaction with other sensors like GNSS, RADAR or LIDAR.”
Upon completion, more than 300 engineers in Europe, Asia and the US will work toward testing of fully autonomous vehicles in a virtual environment, from design to development to validation to production to testing.
For more information, visit the ADAS IIT – Innovation In Test website.