AB Dynamics will deliver a presentation on the company’s range of ADAS development tools at the 18th Driving Simulation & Virtual Reality Conference & Exhibition, Strasbourg, France.
The DSC Conference gathers driving simulation specialists from the industrial and academic communities as well as commercial simulation providers. AB Dynamics will showcase its integrated software and hardware toolchain which is consistent between its expanding range of track test products and driving simulators that together enable efficient evaluation and validation of ADAS and autonomous driving technology at Stand 15. The company’s experts will also explain the broad range of benefits offered to automotive and motorsport industries by its advanced Vehicle Driving Simulator (aVDS), which has achieved widespread adoption, including by automotive research institutions in Europe and China and in Formula OneTM by Alfa Romeo Racing.
An accompanying presentation will be delivered by Dr. Adrian Simms, Business Director (Laboratory Test Systems) at 5pm on Wednesday 4th September at the conference, which will touch on the challenges posed by effective ADAS and AV testing and the solutions provided by AB Dynamics.
“Driver-in-the-Loop (DIL) capability, as offered by the aVDS, is absolutely essential for the efficient assessment of ADAS and autonomous functions at an early development stage; it reduces the reliance on prototyping and risk of conducting real-world scenario testing, both accelerating development time and lessening associated costs,” explains Dr. Adrian Simms. “Adoption of the aVDS by the Chinese Automotive Technology and Research Centre (CATARC) and by Hochschule Kempten’s ‘Adrive Living Lab’, which is focused on the development of autonomous driving demonstrates the growing importance of streamlined vehicle and technology development times.”
AB Dynamics’ family of simulator products, which comprises of workstation, static and high performance platform options for both automotive and motorsport applications, provides organisations with the ability to fine-tune characteristics such as vehicle dynamics, ride handling, ergonomics, driver behaviour and powertrain refinement, as well as developing ADAS and autonomous technology.
The simulator’s versatility, which allows the potential to interconnect multiple systems worldwide, enables vehicle systems and configurations to be quickly tested in various driving environments with a driver in the loop. This driver immersion is essential for collating subjective and objective feedback to assess ADAS interaction and is enabled by low latency dynamics and feedback, and precise visual, audio, haptic and vestibular cueing. This also makes it perfect for motorsport utilisation and is a valuable tool for racing car development, driver familiarisation and chassis fine-tuning.
For optimum realism, the aVDS uses immersive graphics provided by rFpro, which is now an AB Dynamics group company, and can be tailored to suit customers’ requirements with the addition of bespoke enhancements, such as an active seat, active brake and throttle pedals, active wing and rear view mirrors, plus a configurable LCD instrument cluster. There are also a variety of cabin options – a lightweight carbon fibre version, motorsport tub or the front of a real car.
“With the aVDS we have the ability to train our drivers and to use a powerful engineering tool for improving our performance on track,” explains Frédéric Vasseur, team principal Alfa Romeo Racing and CEO Sauber Motorsport AG, after his team became the latest elite motorsport set-up to adopt the aVDS.
“Following our comprehensive evaluation of all available systems we are convinced that the aVDS from AB Dynamics is the best available driving simulator,” adds Ian Wright, head of vehicle science at Alfa Romeo Racing, which selected the aVDS for its ability to minimise latency in both the visual environment and the motion system. “The high performance level of this system on paper equated to a unique capability when used for vehicle development and it will provide the drivers and race engineers at Alfa Romeo Racing with a vital improvement in the vehicle performance development toolset.”
At the Driving Simulation Conference EuropeVR, AB Dynamics will demonstrate the benefits of its flexible product range to the automotive and motorsport industries. For example, its aVDS can be used alongside equipment such as the SPMM (suspension parameter measurement machine), which measures the parameters used in vehicle models, steering and pedal vehicle driving robots and ADAS Soft Crash Targets such as GST, SPT and LaunchPad, full details of which can be found on the AB Dynamics website. Its full family of products that cover laboratory, track and simulation technologies ensures synergistic vehicle and ADAS development for AB Dynamics’ customers.
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