Enhance your advanced driver-assistance systems testing

Existing OXTS users will already be familiar with the precision and reliability that our inertial navigation systems (GNSS/INS) bring to automotive testing. You have a powerful suite of capable tools at your disposal, but as vehicle technology continues to rapidly evolve, so do the demands of Advanced Driver-Assistance Systems (ADAS) testing, assessment, and validation.

The good news is that OXTS devices can be upgraded in-field, thanks to our feature codes.

What are feature codes? 

Feature codes enable you to activate specific capabilities on your OXTS GNSS/INS. Enabling the right feature codes equips you with capabilities for particular use cases, including integration with driving robots, precise synchronisation with multiple sensors, multiple dynamics measurement points, and additional aiding algorithms for GNSS-denied positioning – all without swapping out hardware.

With software-enabled feature codes, you can add new capabilities to your existing devices, measure in more locations, and streamline your workflows to deliver the most reliable and flexible ADAS testing platform possible. In this blog, we’ll look at the specific features that make OXTS devices the market leaders in ADAS validation.

Precision on the proving ground

RT-Range V2V/V2L: Comprehensive Multi-Actor Testing

Validating ADAS comes down to accurately measuring the dynamic relationship between your testing vehicles and other objects, both stationary and in motion.

Our RT-Range system, enabled by the V2V (Vehicle-to-Vehicle) and V2L (Vehicle-to-Lane) feature codes, provides a robust solution for this task that has become the industry standard for ADAS validation. Activating these features allows you to accurately measure the real-time position and orientation of multiple vehicles and targets relative to one another, while manoeuvring through complex environments.

To give you even more precision, RT-Range can configure each vehicle in our software as complex polygons with up to 24 individual vertices, enabling precise measurement of distances from sensor fields of view to actual vehicle corners – critical for validating safety systems like Blind Spot Detection.

With RT-Range, you can confidently conduct a wide range of ADAS validation tests, including those required by international standards like Euro NCAP, NHTSA, and IIHS. Key applications include:

• Autonomous Emergency Braking (AEB): Whether testing car-to-car or vulnerable road user (VRU) scenarios, RT-Range provides the precise relative measurements needed to validate system performance.
• Lane Departure Warning (LDW) and Lane Keeping Assist (LKA): The V2L capabilities allow for accurate mapping of lane markings and measurement of the vehicle’s position within them, providing the necessary ground-truth data.
• Blind Spot Detection (BSD) and Adaptive Cruise Control (ACC): RT-Range makes it possible to accurately track the position and velocity of other vehicles to validate system performance in various traffic scenarios.

Adding the RT-Range feature codes is an investment in a comprehensive ADAS validation solution, providing the reliable data required by automotive manufacturers and test facilities worldwide.

Learn more about RT-Range

Robot interface: for repeatable and complex manoeuvres

The test track is the foundational environment for validating ADAS performance, and over time ADAS testing scenarios have become far more complex and more intricate. Many rely on driving robots, precisely coordinated to guide test vehicles through a test scenario. For complex manoeuvres like dynamic lane changes, or high-speed collision avoidance scenarios, for instance, human drivers simply cannot achieve the consistency required for complex valid comparative testing.

In these tests, precise and repeatable vehicle control is essential. Our Robot Interface feature codes enable your OXTS GNSS/INS to communicate directly with steering robots and automated guided platforms, so they can benefit from the precision positioning data your GNSS/INS provides.

Our Robot Interface enables you to integrate your GNSS/INS with AB Dynamics driving robots (other robots can be integrated too).

This direct integration offers clear advantages for ADAS testing:

• Execute complex, synchronised manoeuvres: For scenarios involving multiple vehicles and targets, the Robot Interface allows for a high degree of precision and timing that is critical for valid results.
• Ensure test-to-test consistency: By removing the variability of a human driver, you can be confident that changes in test results are due to the performance of the ADAS under evaluation.
• Reduce integration complexity: Pre-built integrations mean you can spend less time on system setup, and more time testing.

Enabling these features on your existing INS hardware is an essential step when planning complex testing scenarios involving driving robots.

Acceleration filters and extended measurements: Understanding vehicle dynamics

While testing regularly focuses on the interaction between the vehicle and its environment, a clear understanding of the underlying vehicle dynamics provides essential context to meet exacting industry standards.

Our Acceleration Filters and Extended Measurements feature codes provide you the tools for much deeper analysis.

• Acceleration Filters: Engine vibrations and road surface irregularities can introduce significant noise into acceleration measurements. The filtering occurs in real-time on the device, ensuring clean data is immediately available to data loggers and control systems.
• Extended Measurements: This feature code provides access to a range of additional data points, offering a more complete view of vehicle performance. This includes measurements like slip angle, track angle, and velocity, acceleration, and angular rates in the ISO 8855 coordinate frame specified in NCAP.

CAN acquisition: Integrating vehicle data for complete analysis

Misalignment of even a few milliseconds leads to incorrect conclusions about system performance and cause-and-effect relationships. But a vehicle’s CAN bus provides a wealth of information, from wheel speed and steering angle to the status of the ADAS itself.

Our CAN Acquisition feature code allows you to capture CAN data streams, integrate them directly with your GNSS/INS data, and address a range of common challenges in automotive testing like synchronising data from multiple sources.

Practical benefits include:

• Simplified Setups: This feature simplifies your testing setups by reducing the number of data loggers and cables required to gain accurate measurements and details.
• Synchronised Data: Acquiring CAN data directly through your OXTS device ensures it’s perfectly synchronised with your position, orientation, and other measurements, eliminating the time-consuming task of aligning different data logs in post-processing.
• Holistic Analysis: With all data in one place, you can conduct a more complete analysis of ADAS performance. For example, you can correlate the exact moment an AEB system was activated on the CAN bus with the precise start of vehicle deceleration.

Maintaining accuracy on the open road

PTP/GPTP Synchronisation: Precise Sensor Timing

Modern test vehicles use a plethora of sensor types, cameras, LiDAR, radar telemetry, and more. To ensure your data integrity it’s essential that all these sensors are perfectly synchronised.

The PTP (Precision Time Protocol) and gPTP (Generalised Precision Time Protocol) feature code allows your OXTS INS to act as a master clock, providing sub-microsecond timing accuracy for all other sensors in your system.

This is particularly important for open-road testing, where you might collect data over long distances in areas with intermittent GNSS signals. By ensuring all sensors are precisely synchronised, you can be confident in the accuracy and reliability of your data, even in challenging conditions.

Gx/ix technology: Maintaining accuracy in challenging environments

Urban canyons, tunnels, skyscrapers, and dense tree cover can all interfere with GNSS signals and make it difficult to maintain accurate position data.

This is where our proprietary gx/ix tight-coupling technology shines.

Gx/ix is an advanced algorithm that allows the INS to use raw data from fewer satellites than would normally be required for a standard position fix.

When operating in ix mode, our system helps you by maintaining positioning accuracy when only one or two satellites are visible, using raw measurements to aid the inertial sensors and prevent drift.

Intelligent adaptation means that when you exit challenging environments like tunnels, the system returns to centimetre-level accuracy much faster than conventional systems, minimising data gaps and ensuring continuous measurement quality.

Learn more about gx/ix

LiDAR Boost: Navigation in challenging GNSS locations

For environments where GNSS is completely unavailable, such as long tunnels or underground parking facilities, LiDAR Boost offers an effective solution.

LiDAR boost enables you to use data from LiDAR sensors to aid the GNSS/INS and maintain accuracy during post-processing.

It all works through the smart tracking of static environmental features like tunnel walls or support structures in the LiDAR point cloud data. By combining GNSS/INS data with visual references, you can accurately generate highly-precise trajectories, even in the event of complete loss of GNSS signal.

While this requires additional sensor integration and processing, it represents a significant capability for comprehensive testing programs that need to validate ADAS performance across all driving environments. And if you want to eliminate the additional complexity, WayFinder Prime can provide real-time LiDAR Boost to enhance accuracy during ADAS validation, with minimal setup needed out of the box.

Learn more about how LiDAR Boost supports GNSS-denied navigation

OXTS: Preparing you for the future of ADAS validation

As the field of Advanced Driver-Assistance Systems continues to rapidly change, testing capabilities must evolve with it. Feature codes are practical enhancements for your OXTS hardware, designed to meet the challenges of both current and future testing requirements.

They leverage your existing hardware investment, provide capabilities that are proven in demanding automotive testing environments, and offer you the flexibility to adapt as testing requirements evolve.

It’s important to evaluate which features best align with your specific testing needs and operational requirements so we encourage you to explore our full range of feature codes available for your OXTS GNSS/INS.

Learn more about our individual feature codes or feature bundles

Talk to our applications engineers today to map the right feature codes to your test scenarios and start getting cleaner, faster, more repeatable ADAS results.

Contact us to learn more about how you can maximise the value of your existing OXTS hardware.