ASSURED CAV launches a new suite of virtual and physical CAV & ADAS testing enhancements
Midlands Future Mobility validates a range of new capabilities to augment HORIBA MIRA’s integrated and correlated testing environment
- New enhancements for customer CAV & ADAS engineers adds a layer of advanced capability to the world’s leading proving ground developed explicitly for connected and autonomous vehicle testing
- Integration & correlation connects the proving ground to simulation testing as well as the UK’s most extensive public highway testbed
- Simulation capabilities significantly enhanced with novel solutions to enhance speed and accuracy for engineers
- Proving ground enhancement with next-generation façades provide a new rigour for sensor and other connected and autonomous vehicle systems evaluation
- The communications hardware stack that supports MFM’s public road testbeds is now replicated on the proving ground
Nuneaton, Warwickshire. HORIBA MIRA’s advanced test and engineering divison for connected and autonomous vehicles, ASSURED CAV, has completed a series of enhancements to further advance its capabilities for engineers centred on its dedicated connected and autonomous facilities delivered in partnership with the Centre for Connected Autonomous Vehicles that are now fully in service for customers. The new capabilities are summarised in a report that publishes today and is available for download here.
The project work completed as part of Midlands Future Mobility has enabled ASSURED CAV to move beyond providing new and world leading facilities for CAV & ADAS engineers to offering a new layer of services from its complete and contiguous testing environment that spans simulation, controlled testing on the proving ground to live public highway testing, all of which is accessible from one location.
These ground-breaking enhancements span all elements of the virtual and physical testing services and facilities; CAV simulation capability for customers is now faster and more accurate, thanks to the development of a database of test-ready scenarios that allows engineers to quickly search, surface and use prepared simulation scenarios. Moreover, simulation fidelity has been significantly enhanced to allow engineers to repeat transient conditions such as an almost limitless array of weather and road conditions to add rigour and definition to virtual test conditions.
As part of Midlands Future Mobility, HORIBA MIRA’s simulation team have developed a natural language simulation database that makes identifying and selecting test-ready simulation scenarios quick and easy, enabling engineers to concentrate on testing as opposed to configuring simulation scenarios. In addition, the team have built a comprehensive array of weather and environmental conditions that can be used to add realistic context to simulation testing as well as enable greater correlation with ambient conditions encountered in real world testing.
Out in the ASSURED CAV controlled environment, work undertaken under the auspices of Midlands Future Mobility has included the design of novel solutions to allow roadways to be laid out to precise and representative real world specifications, including appropriate road marking and sign degradation, along with street furniture, buildings and vegetation that provide authentic responses to CAV sensor technologies including LiDAR, radar and cameras. HORIBA MIRA engineers have designed and tested a new generation of mobile façades using material solutions that authentically replicate the sensor signatures of masonry, vegetation and other physical materials in order that testing on the proving ground correlates with both the real and virtual world.
ASSURED CAV’s proprietary façade technology built on mobile trolleys can be configured in sections up to 30m and configured to test sensor response to buildings, vegetation and street furniture. A sensor-neutral screenprint layer allows the façade to be dressed to visually represent scenes from the public testbed or other test scenarios as required
With the MFM testbed providing over 200 miles of public highway testing with a dedicated communications infrastructure, HORIBA MIRA have created an identical hardware stack on the proving ground, allowing test programmes to move seamlessly to and from the public highway and the proving ground; moreover, the testbed network starts at the gates of the ASSURED CAV facilities in Nuneaton, Warwickshire, providing customers with a one-stop location to overcome the logistical challenges often associated with complex CAV test programmes.
The conclusion of the MFM projects means that these significant enhancements to both virtual and physical testing are now validated and available for customer engineering teams seeking the most accurate and efficient solution set to undertake CAV and ADAS testing.
Alastair Evanson, Head of Commercial & Business Development at ASSURED CAV said,
“At HORIBA MIRA, we have not just been content to develop one of the leading multi-environment CAV testing facilities in the world, but we have also developed solutions designed by engineers for engineers that remove many of the bottlenecks and inefficiencies that slow or add cost to CAV development pathways. As part of the MFM project, we have identified key issues for engineers in both the digital and real world and set about to improve accuracy, fidelity and correlation with some really pioneering work to provide best-in-class solutions. Today we publish a report covering the work that we have completed that now provides the backbone of new capabilities available to our customers.”
