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The rapid innovation underway with vehicle brake safety systems leads to extensive evaluation and testing by system developers and regulatory agencies. The ability to evaluate complex heavy truck braking systems is potentially more rapid and economical through hardware-in-the-loop (HiL) simulation which employs the actual electronics and vehicle hardware. Though the initial HiL system development is time consuming and expensive, tests conducted on the completed system do not require track time, fuel, vehicle maintenance, or technician labor for driving or truck configuration changes. Truck and trailer configuration and loading as well as test scenarios can be rapidly adjusted within the vehicle dynamics simulation software to evaluate the performance of automated safety interventions (such as ESC) over a wide range of conditions.

For over a decade, Ohio Northern University's participation in the SAE Baja competition was limited to a Mechanical Engineering senior design (capstone) team. The teams' experience was often one of frustration, generally ending in a car that placed low in the final competition standings, and some years could not even pass technical inspection. Six years ago underclassmen successfully petitioned to switch Baja to an all-volunteer team. The resulting transformation was dramatic. Though the new team received no class credit for their work, the number of hours spent on the project rose sharply. Continuity in personnel from year to year ensured that painful lessons were not repeated, and experience gained from competition and relationships with other schools' teams was put to good use. Planning for next year began the minute that the current year's competition was over, rather than the team putting it all behind them and moving on to their career.