Application Story

Challenge

Currently, vehicle-in-the-loop (ViL) testing on chassis dynamometers is becoming  a worthy alternative to testing procedures conducted on real proving grounds, test tracks and public roads. In particular for the testing of advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) and autonomous driving functionalities the ViL approach entails significant advantages such as the reduction of testing time and costs, enhanced reproducibility, safety and the fact that testing can be conducted already during early development stages. For ViL testing, the vehicle under test does not interact with real traffic participants or road signs. Instead, the chassis dynamometer is equipped with a set of devices - so called stimulators - each responsible for stimulating a respective sensor system (i.e. camera, lidar, radar) and therefore creating an artificial environment, the vehicle under test (VuT) may interact with. However, to obtain results which are as close to reality as possible, appropriate data input formats are required.

One aspect of such a virtual environmental twin are the simulated tracks onto which the VuT is driving. Besides the realistic physical input variables determining the simulated road load, the simulated track must also provide objects such as signs, lane markings and other traffic control elements which may be perceived by the VuT’s sensors.

Solution

ASAM OpenDRIVE is an ideally suited format, which includes all necessary static aspects of the  virtual environmental twin in form of an XML syntax: The various road geometry parameters as for example distance, curvature and elevation can be derived to simulate the respective road load by means of the dynamometer. Besides, these data describe the 3D layout of the simulated track but also additional objects such as road signs, traffic lights, surface profiles, railroad elements, tunnels, bridges linked to the road geometry. In addition to ASAM OpenDRIVE, the ASAM OpenSCENARIO format is used to insert all the relevant dynamic elements such as traffic participants or special target vehicles. From these datasets the respective parameters for the particular test cell devices as camera, lidar and radar stimulators are derived to create the artificial environment.

Key-Benefits

• Single data format, providing comprehensive information to obtain a detailed and realistic virtual environment for ViL testing
• Closed and controllable data flow
• Enabling porting of HD mapped real world traffic networks with a high degree of itemization and geometric accuracy to the HiL and ViL test cell
• Various proprietary and open source tools available to create and modify ASAM OpenDRIVE data
• The foreseen combination to other Open Standards like ASAM OpenSCENARIO can be beneficial to enhance the artificial environment…
• Creation of artificial traffic and the implementation of traffic management tooling is possible
• HORIBA provides single source solutions such as fully equipped test cells as well as single standing devices, which may be integrated in existing chassis dynamometers
• 3D Mapping Solutions provides HD maps of real road networks, proving grounds and race tracks available as ODR files