Expertise

Advanced Testing & Validation

VIRTUAL VEHICLE’s goal is the realization of highest customer satisfaction by executing the test projects in time, in cost and in quality by considering the interacting processes of all parties involved. Therefore VIRTUAL VEHICLE has more than 15 years experience in working as a team with leading science and industrial partners.

Market Challenge

• Digital Mobility
  Users, vehicles and their environment are increasingly networked, and the role of vehicles is changing in our society. Digital networking and the availability of mobility is now the most important thing for Generation Z. This not only has an impact on the vehicle itself, but also on the entire value chain of the vehicle industry and its associated ecosystem like test systems.

• Electrification and Hybridization
  The trend towards the increased electrification of vehicle powertrains – whether through hybridization or substitution with pure battery-electric architectures – is now firmly established. Therefore the need for increased thermal and acoustic comfort arises (i.e. the missing of the masking sound of the combustion engine and its generated waste heat to heat the cabin)..

• Autonomous Driving: From driver-only to robo-taxi
  There is a growing need for improving vehicle perception capabilities, which will create opportunities for both existing sensors to proliferate as well as new sensing technologies to emerge. Bad and complex driving conditions are still not addressed by today’s autonomous test systems and one of the keys to real-world deployment would be the improvement of visions applications

Our Expertise

To master the challenges such as growing complexity, virtual and real world need to be interconnected.
Our solutions:

• Open connected vehicle platform
  VIRTUAL VEHICLE’s open research platform with its well-defined and open interfaces allows the integration and evaluation of new sensor technologies and artificial intelligence algorithms. It includes among others the following aspects: Sensor Integration/Fusion, ADAS functions implementation and deep learning.

• Model-centric system design
  A model-centric approach offers high-potential opportunities for systematically addressing crucial objectives in the design of future vehicle systems, such as e.g. design of safety critical systems, flexible scalability in design or back-traceability of detected faults during system validation. VIRTUAL VEHICLE continuously investigates and defines approaches for massively parallel, distributed and collaborative engineering of vehicle systems from requirements, through design, down to realization in hardware and software.

• Integration Virtual and Real Testing
  Customers benefit from unique test beds, distributed co-simulation, functional architecture and know-how. All designed to enable the seamless integration of models, execution, environments, data, automation and processes, consistently from the virtual to the real world.
  VIRTUAL VEHICLEs test environment, which enables interaction between simulation and the testbed, helps researchers understand and work with constantly increasing complexity. From the component level right through to the complete vehicle.

Main Research Topics

VIRTUAL VEHICLE investigates in advanced functional validation methods and provides cutting-edge testing facilities for vehicles, engines, powertrain and their components.

By front-loading conventional vehicle testing to specific test beds or even further forward to reliable numerical simulation, it is possible to assess a comprehensive variation of product design parameters and testing maneuvers in early development stages. This results in substantial cost and time reductions compared to physical vehicle testing and hence results in an optimization of the modern vehicle development process.

Benefits

• State-of-the-art technologies for highly accurate and repeatable testing and measurement
• High degree of flexibility in contract testing and development partnership
• Experienced professional team dedicated to the test centre
• Direct access to VIRTUAL VEHICLE fields of expertise