If IPG's engineers are right, the car of tomorrow will actively assist its driver in difficult situations and to reduce fuel consumption. It will recognize the environment and warn the vehicle operator of imminent hazards. In addition, it will adapt the vehicle's energy storage to the most economic path and, if necessary, intervene actively. Intelligent driver assistance systems which process information about the vehicle's condition, the driver, the traffic environment and the current driving situation or mode, enable the performance of such tasks. These systems are capable of executing active interventions with very high reliability.

Under normal conditions, these assistant systems share control with the driver, but in the case of an emergency, they are able to take control completely autonomously. For the driver this translates into less stress and higher safety.

In order to get there, significant technology improvements are necessary. The development leap both companies are working on is based on data from various sources such as onboard-installed sensors, intelligent hard- and software plus navigation devices. Many of these data are already available as “standard onboard equipment,” but the reliable fusion of all these data to create a conclusive overall picture is still a challenge and a topic for the future. Data fusion, however, is a prerequisite for providing assistance systems with “cognitive” capabilities such as situation recognition and interpretation.

Current testing procedures for new assistance systems involve real-world road tests covering thousands of kilometers or miles. This is both costly and time-intensive. In addition, critical situations which sparsely occur - are not covered by this approach. Therefore, to ensure the reliability of driver assistance systems, appropriate simulation tools that model traffic situations in a realistic way are used as well. They provide repeatable and comparable test conditions for virtual tests and validation. The same applies to the test of intelligent driver assistance and information systems where the key to success lies in the reliable fusion of the available data.

IPG and FZI are collaborating to develop suitable tools for a test and integration platform. IPG brings more than 25 years of experience in the field of vehicle dynamics simulation to the project. FZI draws on a wealth of experience in the field of information fusion and interpretation in automotive applications. Furthermore, FZI has the appropriate evaluation and development environment in the FZI Living Lab Automotive, a facility that was officially opened during the institute's 25th anniversary celebrations.

The new platform will integrate all the data in the virtual drive, thus enabling the interaction between all systems in terms of function, communication and failure safety to be investigated and optimized for the first time. Methods for sensor data fusion, which are of central importance to the development of intelligent driver assistance systems, are tested with a high level of realism this way. In addition, the fact that this tool enables the migration of the whole development into simulation reduces the overall development cycle and benefits the development budget. Last but not least, this approach significantly enhances product quality as the higher level of product maturity and helps to reduce costly recalls.

For more information, visit http://www.ipg-automotive.com/