ADAS and new energy drive fundamental changes in automotive testing

　　Recently, Intel announced a partnership with Waymo, Alphabet's self-driving company, to jointly build a Level 4 and Level 5 self-driving computing platform suitable for any road conditions. Not long ago, the new generation Audi A8 equipped with Audi AI self-driving system was launched globally. As the world's first mass-produced model with Level 3 self-driving function, it has attracted much attention from the industry... Currently, technology companies and traditional vehicle giants are rushing to enter the field of self-driving, and ADAS is the key to moving from traditional cars to unmanned driving. Let's follow the automotive electronics editor to learn more about the relevant content.

　　James Smith, global business and technical director of NI  data acquisition and control, said at the Automotive Testing Expo CHINA 2017 that the continuous evolution of ADAS has not only led to a continuous increase in the types and number of sensors in automobiles, but also accelerated the advancement of sensor fusion technology based on different sensors. All of this will greatly increase the complexity of automobile testing, and efficiency and cost challenges will follow.

Figure 1.  NI experts discuss challenges of future automotive testing at the Automotive Test & Quality Control Expo China.

　　The first person on the right is  James Smith, global business and technology director of NI data acquisition and control, and the first person on the left is Yang Qianhui, senior technical marketing engineer of NI

　　ADAS testing also talks about "Fusion", platform-based solutions gradually become the trump card

　　In recent years, the penetration rate of ADAS systems has increased rapidly. According to the forecast of CITIC Securities Research Department, thanks to the driving forces such as policies and regulations promoting the popularization of original equipment by traditional manufacturers and the pressure from cross-border Internet competitors, the scale of China's ADAS market is expected to reach 200 billion yuan in 2020, with the penetration rate of the original equipment market reaching 30%.

Figure 2. CITIC Securities Research Department predicts that China's ADAS market size is expected to reach 200 billion yuan in 2020

　　As a perception unit, the surround view system based on camera image recognition and the comprehensive perception application of superimposed radar are the hardware core of ADAS. According to Yang Qianhui, a senior technical marketing engineer at NI, according to the intelligent driving classification definition of L0~L5 set by the International Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE), the entire automotive industry is still in the transition stage of L2~L3. As the level of intelligent driving increases, the distribution of sensors in the vehicle will be wider and the fusion application will be deeper. James Smith emphasized: "With the increase in the number of sensors, many new requirements have emerged for the individual testing of each sensor. Considering the sensor fusion technology required for intelligent driving, the synchronization and overall performance testing of each sensor at the system level will pose challenges to the test itself and the test cost."

　　Different from other test vendors, NI's software-centric platform test solution has its own unique advantages in ADAS testing:

　　1. NI has many years of experience in RF testing and image formation. As radar plays an increasingly important role in ADAS systems, NI's automotive testing solutions are more professional.

　　2. At the same time, based on the flexible test platform of PXI, NI test solutions can achieve precise synchronization testing at the microsecond level, which is why the NI PXI platform can be seamlessly integrated into sensor fusion testing;

　　3. Whether it is RF testing or synchronous performance testing... these advantages are based on NI's unified hardware and software platform, and NI's platform-based testing solutions can also be used throughout the entire process of automotive testing, such as early model-in-the-loop (MIL) and software testing, mid-term hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) simulation, and final vehicle scenario testing.

Figure 3. NI’s unified platform solution spans the entire automotive testing process

　　Therefore, "whether it is for test engineers or verification engineers, whether it is laboratory testing or the final vehicle scenario testing, the NI solution provides a unified platform in which the code can be highly reused. This not only simplifies the development difficulty for engineers and improves testing efficiency, but also effectively controls testing costs," added Yang Qianhui.

　　At present, NI's test solution has been verified by the market. As mentioned at the beginning of the article, the launch of the new generation Audi A8, the world's first mass-produced model with L3 autonomous driving function, has shocked the industry. NI and Audi have already started cooperation based on ADAS testing. After implementing radar testing based on the NI PXI platform solution, Niels Koch (Component Owner of Radar Systems, Audi AG) highly praised NI's high efficiency in automotive electronics and software testing: "Thanks to the PXI vector signal transceiver with the industry's widest bandwidth and lowest latency software features, NI helps us better test autonomous driving radar sensors and help us find problems in the early stages of product design, which was unimaginable before."

Figure 4. NI presented its ADAS automotive testing solution from R&D verification to production line testing at the exhibition.

　　In view of the rapid increase in the penetration rate of domestic ADAS, the Chinese market has always been the focus of NI's full layout. According to Yang Qianhui, Geely has cooperated with NI to carry out tests on 77GHz automotive millimeter-wave radar. In addition to vehicle manufacturers, NI has also carried out cutting-edge research cooperation with many Chinese universities and research institutions, such as Jilin University.

　　NI also wins in new energy vehicle testing based on high-performance computing processing module FlexRIO FPGA

　　Of course, the changes in the automotive industry are not limited to autonomous driving, and NI's platform-based test solutions are not only applicable to ADAS testing. In addition to autonomous driving with ADAS as the core, new energy and vehicle networking are driving fundamental changes in the automotive industry, and at the same time, they are also driving a huge gap between traditional automotive testing and future-oriented automotive testing.

　　James Smith believes: "At present, China has surpassed North America to become the world's largest new energy vehicle market, which is very promising." Indeed, with the support of preferential policies in many countries, new energy vehicles have become the new force in China's automobile market. According to data released by the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, China's new energy vehicle sales in 2016 were 507,000 units, a year-on-year increase of 53%. The "Medium- and Long-Term Development Plan for the Automobile Industry" released on April 25 this year also clearly listed energy-saving vehicles as a development priority. It is expected that by 2020, China's annual production and sales of new energy vehicles will reach 2 million units.

　　According to James Smith, compared with traditional cars, the three-electric system in new energy vehicles is the core, and the testing of motors and batteries is crucial. For example, the motor speed of new energy vehicles is very high, about 500 times that of traditional cars, and for batteries, special high-performance tests are also required. NI also has actual case studies for these two aspects.

　　To help Subaru develop its world's first crossover hybrid model, the Subaru XV Crosstrek Hybrid, NI developed a new verification system consisting of a real engine ECU and a HIL system that simulates engine operation. During testing, the HIL system can easily simulate complex test scenarios by simply changing a single parameter. Due to the high computing performance required for the entire process, Subaru believes that NI is the only supplier that can meet these needs.

　　It is reported that Subaru's core system hardware uses the NI FlexRIO FPGA module, a PXI-based controller equipped with an FPGA chip, to simulate the model of engine operation, and all programs are deployed using NI LabVIEW system design software. Subaru decided to use the NI FlexRIO platform mainly because the platform uses FPGA for control and calculation, which brings great advantages to the calculation processing performance and can achieve a simulation rate of 1.2 µs, while most simulation platforms of other manufacturers use CPU to perform calculations, resulting in a cycle rate of only 5 µs to 50 µs.

　　“Based on the NI FlexRIO FPGA platform, all the test patterns developed by Subaru were automatically executed in just 118 hours, while it would have taken about 2,300 hours to execute all the tests manually. NI’s solution saved customers 95% of the time,” Yang Qianhui shared based on customer feedback.

　　Automotive testing is integrating the future, and "unification" is becoming the key word in the industry

Figure 5. NI automotive test solutions fully cover ADAS, new energy, and connected car testing needs

　　Providing a software-centric platform-based testing solution is the core of NI solutions, and "unification" has become the keyword of NI testing solutions, whether it is ADAS, new energy or Internet of Vehicles testing; whether it is early model-in-the-loop, software testing, mid-term HIL simulation, or later vehicle scenario testing, NI's unified solution runs through all sub-segments and processes of automotive testing.

　　James Smith said that even in the V2X field based on different standard protocols, NI can also use the PXI platform to complete the testing of different communication protocols such as 802.11p, WiFi, and future 5G. Based on NI's modular hardware platform, customers only need to modify the software accordingly to easily implement different functions.

　　“Future-oriented automotive testing requires not only NI to ‘move forward’ on the technical level, but also the development of partners and the establishment of an ecosystem based on NI’s unified software and hardware platform. For example, we highlighted the sensor fusion test demo by NI’s partner, Konrad Technologies, at this exhibition,” Yang Qianhui concluded. “In the field of V2X, NI, based on its own wireless test system (WTS), worked with its partner NOFFZ to provide HARMAN with a complete wireless communication test solution.”

    The above is an introduction to how ADAS and new energy are leading fundamental changes in automotive testing in automotive electronics. If you want to know more related information, please pay more attention to eeworld. eeworld Electronic Engineering will provide you with more complete, detailed and updated information.