ADAS Testing

Introduction

In recent years, the automotive industry has been working on the development of Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS), comprising of all the systems that monitor the environment with the aim of avoiding collisions. Applus+ IDIADA has been involved in defining a systematic methodology for evaluating and validating ADAS, which consisted of designing and performing various evaluation tests under controlled conditions at IDIADA’s Proving ground facilities.

To test these systems, it is necessary to reproduce real-life traffic situations, where different cars interact with each other. Therefore a system which allows simulation of the required scenarios has been developed in order to perform ADAS testing activities in a safe and realistic environment. This approach is necessary to lower the risk of the equipment getting damaged and more importantly prevent human injuries by lowering the probability of contact between vehicles in the event of electronic system failures while testing.

The target vehicle was specially selected to have good dynamic behaviour, stable straight line driving, powerful engine and efficient braking. A metallic structure designed to simulate a vehicle is mounted on the target vehicle. This simulated structural panel acts as the target, which can be detected by the electronic ADAS sensors used by the test vehicles. Also four different configurations allow a wide range of test possibilities.

The other issues of highest importance are accuracy and repeatability. Hence accurate RT3002 Inertial GPS Navigation Systems will be used for high quality measurements of various physical parameters like position (x, y and z), velocities (x, y and z), accelerations (x, y and z) etc. For accurate repeatability steering, braking and throttle robots will be used for driving the vehicles. These robots can be interfaced with the on-board Inertial and GPS navigation system for using 2cm-accurate GPS positioning to drive a vehicle through a pre-defined course over ground.

IDIADA is using RT-Range systems from OxTS which are an ideal tool to test and verify the accuracy of ADAS sensors. The RT-Range system is used for the accurate measurement of the relative motion between two vehicles and the precise measurement of lane position. The systems output all measurements of the ‘Hunter’ and ‘Target’ vehicle in real-time on CAN bus and PC with high accuracy. The position of the vehicle can be measured with up to 2cm accuracy and speed measurements are accurate to 0.05 km/h which is essential for ADAS testing.

This partnership provides customers with a powerful environment to test all kinds of systems such as ACC Stop&Go, Lane Change Warning, Blind Spot Detection, Lane Departure Warning, Pre-crash, Intersection Assistance, Rear Collision Warning, etc… which use different sensors like radar, lidar or video cameras to be tested in open field requiring real life scenarios.