Test sol'n checks automotive safety systems

The safety of both driver and passenger is guaranteed by car manufacturers when they design their cars with integrated safety systems. Rationally speaking, these safety systems need to work impeccably before that level of assurance is made.

Safety systems need to be tested as early as possible and integrated in the overall context of the vehicle. In this respect, active safety systems such as emergency brake assist systems and passive safety systems (e.g., airbags) are distinguished. Based on a research project, IPG Automotive developed I/O modules, sensor interfaces and the test system ReSiMa (Replay, Simulate & Manipulate) for Hardware-in-the-Loop (HIL) testing which makes the use of real prototypes redundant.

The test system offers a modular, extensible platform for complex bus and cross-sensor test scenarios. In addition to legal requirements, in the future further requirements such as the integration of the emergency brake assist system for pedestrians must be considered to achieve the full score at the euro NCAP test.

Increasing test efforts and aggravated technical specifications call for new solutions for the testing of safety control units (SCU). A special requirement for HIL test systems is a synchronous and reproducible way of working. In an application scenario for safety-related control units, such as a crash test, the use of appropriate components is required, as is the case for the newly developed test ReSiMa system with hardware modules from IPG automotive, e.g., serial peripheral interface (SPI) and peripheral sensor interface (PSI5).

ReSiMa enables the control unit to be stimulated with real crash data and subsequently, without having to create a new real crash test data set, to change its behaviour in virtual test driving according to the test requirement. As a result, extensive and costly prototypes become redundant. This approach contributes to a reduction of the required testing effort while lowering the cost of materials.

- Christoph Hammerschmidt
  EE Times Europe