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Hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) testing is used by commercial vehicle original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) in several fields of electronics development. HIL tests are a part of the standard development process for engine and machine control systems. For electronic control units (ECUs), not only the HIL test of the hardware but also the controller software validation is very important. For hardware diagnostics validation, a dynamic simulation of the real system could be omitted and an open-loop test of the controller is sufficient in most cases. For most controller software validation including OBD (on-board diagnosis) tests, detailed but real-time capable models have to be used. This article describes the needs and challenges of models in hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) based testing, taking into account the wide range of commercial and off-highway vehicles.

The development of perception functions for tomorrow’s automated vehicles is driven by enormous amounts of data: often exceeding a gigabyte per second and reaching into the terabytes per hour. Data is typically gathered by a fleet of dozens of mule vehicles which multiply the data generated into the hundreds of petabytes per year. Traditional methods for fueling data-driven development would record every bit of every second of a data logging drive on solid-state drives located on a PC in the vehicle. Recorded data must then be exported from these drives using an upload station which pushes to the data lake after arriving back at the garage. This paper considers different techniques for curating logged data.

In future cars, mechanical and hydraulic components will be replaced by new electronic systems (x-by-wire). A failure of such a system constitutes a safety hazard for the passengers as well as for the environment of the car. Thus electronics and in particular software are taking over more responsibility and safety-critical tasks. To minimize the risk of failure in such systems safety standards are applied for their development. The safety standard IEC 61508 has been established for automotive electronic systems. At the same time, automatic code generation is increasingly being used for automotive software development. This is to cope with today's increasing requirements concerning cost reduction and time needed for ECU development combined with growing complexity. However, automatic code generation is hardly ever used today for the development of safety-critical systems.

This presentation focuses on several examples of partnerships between tool suppliers and embedded software developers in which state-of-the-art tools are used to optimize a variety of electric and hybrid vehicle architectures. Projects with Automotive OEMs, Tier One Suppliers as well as with academic institutions will be described. Due to the growing complexity in multiple electronic control units (“ECUs”) inter-communicating over numerous network bus systems, combined with the challenge of controlling and maintaining charges for electric motors, vehicle development would be impossible without use of increasingly sophisticated tools. Hybrid drive trains are much more complex than conventional ones, they have at least one degree of freedom more.

Real-time simulation of truck and trailer combinations can be applied to hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) systems for developing and testing electronic control units (ECUs). The large number of configuration variations in vehicle and axle types requires the simulation model to be adjustable in a wide range. This paper presents a modular multibody approach for the vehicle dynamics simulation of single track configurations and truck-and-trailer combinations. The equations of motion are expressed by a new formula which is a combination of Jourdain's principle and the articulated body algorithm. With the proposed algorithm, a robust model is achieved that is numerically stable even at handling limits. Moreover, the presented approach is suitable for modular modeling and has been successfully implemented as a basis for various system definitions. As a result, only one simulation model is needed for a large variety of track and trailer types.

To make the development of complex aircraft systems manageable and economical, tests must be performed as early as possible in the development process. The test goals are already set in advance before the first hardware for the ECUs exists, to be able to make statements about the system functions or possible malfunctions. This paper describes the requirements on and solutions for test systems for ECUs that arise from these goals. It especially focuses on how a seamless workflow and consistent use of test systems and necessary software tools can be achieved, from the virtual test of ECUs, which exist only as models, up to the test of real hardware. This will be shown in connection with a scalable, fully software-configurable hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) technology. The paper also covers the seamless use of software tools that are required for HIL testing throughout the different test phases, enabling the reuse of work products throughout the test phases.

Electric drives are growing in importance in automotive applications, especially in hybrid electric vehicles (HEV) and in the vehicle dynamics area (steering systems, etc.). The challenges of real-time hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) simulation and testing of electric drives are addressed in this paper. In general, three different interface levels between the electric drive and the hardware-inthe-loop system can be distinguished: the signal level (1), the electrical level (2) and the mechanical level (3). These interface levels, as well as modeling and I/O-related aspects of electric drives and power electronics devices, are discussed in detail in the paper. Finally, different solutions based on dSPACE simulator technology are presented, for both hybrid vehicle and steering applications.

The number of electrical and electronic components in modern vehicles is constantly growing. Increasingly, functionalities are being distributed across several electronic control units (ECUs). While suppliers themselves are responsible for ensuring that individual ECUs function properly, only the OEM can test distributed functions. Moreover, with the volume of testing steadily growing, automated sequences are absolutely essential. To test electronic networks in the vehicle, Ford Europe is using platform-based hardware-in-the-loop simulation with integrated failure insertion. The company is setting up a uniform, project-independent procedure, from standardized test definition to automated test sequences on a virtual vehicle, right through to structured evaluation.

Hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) simulation is a real-time testing process that has been proven indispensable for the modern vehicle dynamics, powertrain, chassis and body systems electronic controls development. The high quality standards and robustness of the control algorithms can only be met by means of detailed vehicle plant simulation models. In the last few years, several efforts have been made to develop detailed plant models. Several tools for the vehicle modeling are available in the market and each tool has different and distinct advantages. This paper addresses ways that dSPACE Automotive Simulation Models (ASM) can support the model-based development processes. Additional modern software tools that were used in connection with the ASM are LMS AMESim and Mathworks SimDriveline (of Simscape). ASM is an open Matlab/Simulink model environment used for offline PC based simulation and online real-time platform HIL testing.

Advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) are becoming increasingly important for today's commercial vehicles. It is therefore crucial that different ADAS functionalities interact seamlessly with existing electronic control unit (ECU) networks. For example, autonomous emergency braking (AEB) systems directly influence the brake ECU and engine control. It has already become impossible to reliably validate this growing interconnectedness of control interventions in vehicle behavior with prototype vehicles alone. The relevant tests must be brought into the lab at an earlier development stage to evaluate ECU interaction automatically. This paper presents an approach for using hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) simulation to validate ECU networks for extremely diverse ADAS scenarios, while taking into account real sensor data. In a laboratory environment, the sensor systems based on radars, cameras, and maps are stimulated realistically with a combination of simulation and animation.

This paper presents an overview of a project called “Modelling and Simulation Tools for Systems Integration on Aircraft (MISSION)”. This is a collaborative project being developed under the European Union Clean Sky 2 Program, a public-private partnership bringing together aeronautics industrial leaders and public research organizations based in Europe. The provision of integrated modeling, simulation, and optimization tools to effectively support all stages of aircraft design remains a critical challenge in the Aerospace industry. In particular the high level of system integration that is characteristic of new aircraft designs is dramatically increasing the complexity of both design and verification. Simultaneously, the multi-physics interactions between structural, electrical, thermal, and hydraulic components have become more significant as the systems become increasingly interconnected.

Hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) simulation in the development and test process of vehicle dynamics controllers requires a real-time tractor-trailer simulation model. The hitch coupling must be numerically stable to ensure real-time simulation for various driving maneuvers, particularly at the vehicle's handling limits. This paper presents a robust implementation of tractor-trailer coupling. The equation of motion is formed using a novel formulation which is a combination of Jourdain's Principle and the Articulated Body Algorithm. The paper shows that a robust model for a real-time tractor-trailer simulation can be achieved with the proposed method. Moreover, the approach presented is suitable for modular modeling, is successfully implemented and can also be used as a basis for flexible system definition with an adjustable number of trailer axles.

This paper presents a demonstrator developed in the European CleanSky2 project MISSION (Modelling and Simulation Tools for Systems Integration on Aircraft). Its scope is the development towards a seamless integrated, interconnected toolchain enabling more efficient processes with less rework time in todays, highly collaborative aerospace domain design applications. The demonstration described here, consists of an open, modular and multitool platform implementation, using specific techniques to achieve fully traceable (early stage) requirements verification by virtual testing. The most promising approach is a model based integration along the whole process from requirements definition to the verified, integrated (and certified) system. Extending previous publications in this series, the paper introduces the motivation and briefly describes the technical background and a potential implementation of a workflow suitable for that target.

Validating control units with hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) simulators is an established method for quality enhancements in automotive software. It is primarily used for testing applications, but in view of increased networking between electronic control units, it can also be used for testing communication scenarios. The testing of electronic control unit (ECU) communication often includes only positive testing. Simple communication nodes are used for this, and communication analyzers are used for verifying communication up to the physical level. However, it is not only an ECU's positive communication behavior that has to be tested, but also its correct behavior in the event of communication errors. In HIL communication scenarios, it is not only possible to emulate the missing bus nodes (restbus simulation) with a link to real-time signals; correct ECU behavior in the event of communication errors can also be tested.