Automotive Engineering - November/December 2021 - 22

SIMULATING A FASTER ROUTE
to ADAS and AV validation
SIMULATION FEATURE
The Simphera AV
simulation platform
can automatically
create, execute and
evaluate simulations
in the cloud, and can
identify system-undertest
(SuT) performance
insufficiencies, critical
situations and edge
cases, according
to dSpace. It has a
modern UI for intuitive
artifact preparation,
and provides predefined
vehicles and
traffic scenarios.
The power to create graphical
traffic scenarios
Hot on the heels of the Simphera launch came an important
addition to the platform's capabilities: a highly automated
solution for creating graphical traffic scenarios, generating
tests and evaluating tests based on coverage. The solution,
called ScenarioPlatform, comes from BTC Embedded
Systems, a maker of automotive software test and verification
tools and a long-time partner of dSpace.
ScenarioPlatform can be integrated seamlessly into
Simphera, the companies announced in summer 2021.
The traffic scenarios are created intuitively using BTC's
The Simphera sim provides a guided workflow to simplify development and
validation tasks
regimens such as NCAP (New Car Assessment Program), or craft
edge-case scenarios to validate less-common parameters. " This is
quite important. Let's say the customers want to do homologation to
get an approval of their controller for cars on the street. This will not
work without qualified simulation models and tools behind that, "
Peperhowe explained. " To generate scenarios from scratch, we have
interactive editors available, " he added.
" Physics-based sensors are needed - camera, radar, lidar and so
on - so you have different levels of test depth that you could take
into account, " he qualified. " The full AV stack, just the sensor perception
or the pure ADAS algorithm. Even if everybody's talking
about ADAS, often it's forgotten to take the powertrain into account.
If we are combining e-mobility, [energy] recuperation, fuelcell
technology, etc., it has big benefits if you have models for all of
these. That means you can use it for single-component test or for
full integration tests. "
Its experience in hardware testing likely provides dSpace an advantage
in simulation software development. " We know what needs
to be tested because of our long history, especially from the HIL side.
Now, in addition, everybody wants to bring it into a virtual environment,
front-loading to an earlier development stage, " Peperhowe
22 November/December 2021
ScenarioComposer. The tool's high level of abstraction makes
it possible to express thousands of test cases with just one
abstract scenario, the companies claim. The automated test
generation functionality uses advanced technology such as
model checking and artificial intelligence (AI). And its intelligent
weakness detection allows test cases to be generated
efficiently based on statistical methods and meaningful coverage
metrics. Compared with random or " brute force " test generation
approaches, this strategy considerably reduces the
amount of test data, while delivering clear metrics. This makes
it possible to determine when the test activities have been
completed even with regard to future homologation criteria,
according to the companies. The simulations are evaluated
automatically by another BTC tool, RuleObserver, to ensure
compliance with traffic rules or safety objectives.
Lindsay Brooke
claimed, emphasizing the flexibility of the cloud platform.
" It's completely scalable by the user. You can
start it on Friday before going home and come back
Monday. Or, if you are in a hurry - 'I want to have results
within half an hour,' - just scale it up. The limit is
not on the dSpace tooling side, it's on the infrastructure
from the cloud side. [Engineers] do not have to
spend their brain about how to handle the tooling,
they can concentrate on their work. "
AUTOMOTIVE ENGINEERING
BOTH IMAGES: dSPACE
Automotive Engineering - November/December 2021

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