In-depth | Meeting the trend of cross-border integration and innovation, NI's platform approach leads new ideas for smart car testing

With the integration of multiple technologies and the increasing complexity of equipment, traditional testing methods will be overturned, and the importance of more flexible and reliable test systems is self-evident. On June 27, 2018, NI (National Instruments) held the 15th PXI Technology and Application Forum in Beijing , attracting many ecological partners to showcase the latest technologies and hundreds of engineers to communicate on site.

Luke Schreier, vice president of automated test marketing at NI, said: " The advantage of PXI is that it is customizable. We give the initiative to the user because some aspects of the test require very high test performance, but some aspects do not necessarily require such high test performance. Users understand such optimization and selection requirements better than test manufacturers. Through user customization, we can meet test needs faster and better."

Figure 1: Luke Schreier, NI vice president of automated test marketing, shares the latest direction and progress of NI PXI technology

The intelligent networking of vehicles also brings new challenges to the exponentially growing test data. NI provides a unique standardized data management solution to meet this challenge. Jia Qingchao, automotive market manager of NI Asia Pacific, said: "As one of the co-founding members of ASAM and an active member of the ASAM ODS working group, NI is committed to helping develop data storage and analysis standards for the automotive industry."

Figure 2: Jia Qingchao, NI Asia Pacific Automotive Marketing Manager

It is worth mentioning that simulation testing is another very important test item in smart car testing. NI's hardware-in-the-loop simulation system (HIL) has been favored by many manufacturers around the world. Jia Qingchao shared NI's successful experience: "NI's HIL system based on a platform approach is open and flexible, allowing users to customize it to meet specific needs. With a modular architecture, engineers can upgrade the platform by adding functions, so that the test system will not be eliminated by time and meet the various needs of demanding embedded software applications. Compared with its competitors, NI's high-performance products make it the best choice for testing innovative control systems."

Currently, NI and four system alliance providers (ADASIIT) have jointly built a sensor fusion system verification platform, integrating cameras , millimeter-wave radars , lidars , and V2X sensors to achieve a complete hardware-in-the-loop system test solution for smart cars. The powerful support behind it is NI's flexible platform system.

Figure 3: Tang Min, NI Asia Pacific Marketing Director, is interviewed by the media

As a software-centric supplier, NI has always attached great importance to investment in software. Tang Min, marketing director of NI Asia Pacific, said: "Many customers have given feedback that they hope to have some interactive software based on the previous hardware, which is why we spend a lot of time developing software products."

Therefore, in the first half of this year, NI released three softwares in succession:

• SystemLink, an application software for distributed system management, provides a centralized interface for automated tasks such as software deployment, remote device configuration, and system health and performance monitoring, helping to improve operational efficiency and reduce maintenance costs;

• InstrumentStudio™ software, which simplifies the development and debugging of automated test systems;

• In particular, the launch of the data logging software FlexLogger can help automotive testing departments quickly capture accurate and complete data to verify system functionality under real conditions and compliance with strict government regulations.

Over the years, NI China's talent team has maintained a double-digit growth. In the Chinese market, the localization rate of NI team talents is as high as over 90%. Qiao Wei, NI Greater China Sales Director, said: "We want to better meet the needs of the Chinese market through deeper cooperation with partners in the Chinese market. NI attaches great importance to localized services and support in China, and has received good customer feedback."

Figure 4: Qiao Wei, NI Sales Director for Greater China

The trend of intelligent, connected and electrified vehicles has continuously improved the safety standards of vehicles, and has put forward more stringent requirements on the perception, decision-making and execution of vehicles. The requirements for test systems have also become more complex, requiring more cross-system and cross-platform tests.

Li Liang , professor and doctoral supervisor of the Department of Automotive Engineering at Tsinghua University, believes that in this process, a complete simulation system that can reflect the characteristics of the vehicle and has significant response characteristics must be built. Tsinghua University has cooperated with NI for a long time and has built four generations of hardware-in-the-loop simulation platforms based on NIPXI + cRIO.

Figure 5: Tsinghua University’s fourth-generation hardware-in-the-loop simulation platform based on NI PXI + cRIO

Li Liang said: "Relying on NI's powerful graphical programming language LabVIEW, combined with advanced PXI and cRIO hardware platforms, we can quickly build a hardware-in-the-loop simulation platform for intelligent driving by-wire chassis."

In addition, the in-vehicle information system is also an important part of smart cars. Today's in-vehicle information systems have added a series of new functions such as wireless communication and intelligent navigation on the basis of the original audio and video entertainment equipment. This leads to huge challenges in the testing of in-vehicle information systems, such as the automation test of touch screen automatic triggering, the reliability and stability test of cloud services, etc.

Chen Shanglou, director of automotive electronics engineering consulting at Beijing Jingwei Hirain Technology Co., Ltd. , introduced that Hirain Technology used NI's PXI system to complete the wireless signal, audio and video signal, GPS signal and human-computer interaction automatic response technology, thereby realizing the automation implementation of human-computer interaction function, functional logic test and performance transaction test under laboratory conditions.

In addition, Mr. Chen also introduced how to use the wide range of I/O options, precise system timing and synchronization functions, and highly reliable and scalable software platform provided by the PXI system and combine it with Hirain Technology's vehicle dynamics model and traffic scenario simulation software to build an integrated simulation test solution for intelligent connected vehicles.

Figure 6: Chen Shanglou, Director of Automotive Electronics Engineering Consulting at Beijing Jingwei Hirain Technology Co., Ltd., delivered a speech

It can be seen that based on NI's platform solution and the integrated modules of its partners, NI can help automobile manufacturers realize the test items from traditional body powertrain to the latest smart car testing covering intelligence, networking and electrification, and can provide manufacturers/research institutions with a full range of solutions from laboratory research and development to mass production testing.

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