Next-generation testing for a safer today and tomorrow
Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) are standard equipment on electric vehicles, and serve to prevent accidents and make our roads safer. Testing the effectiveness of these systems requires engineering brainpower and robust methodologies to get it right. Product integrity and brand reputations depend on it.
The automotive industry is embracing a future that’s electric. The rapid development of Automated, Connected, Electrified and Shared (ACES) technology is changing the transport landscape forever.
When new technologies are developed for the roads, it’s imperative they’re rigorously tested, safe to use, and support the motorist in the right way. Physical verification is hugely important and is needed to support the shift to an automated and electrified future.
Getting active safety right today, enables new tech development and further safety improvements tomorrow.
The latest generation of electric vehicles are blessed with an array of Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) that are designed to prevent accidents and improve vehicle safety. Typical technology includes automatic emergency braking, lane keep assist, adaptive cruise control, driver monitoring, and collision avoidance.
As a world-renowned vehicle research and testing centre, HORIBA MIRA is the independent partner that many vehicle manufacturers choose to run the rule over their ADAS technology to assess, benchmark, and suggest performance improvements where necessary.
The company has invested in the facilities and expertise that enable real-world traffic, pedestrian, and infrastructure scenarios to be recreated so ADAS technologies can be rigorously and repeatedly tested against them.
This capability has become even more important in the last year or so, particularly in light of the General Safety Regulation 2 that was introduced in July 2022 and contributes to Type Approvals for new vehicle types. Some of the mandatory regulations in GSR2 serve as a foundation for ADAS technology testing, namely across the ‘vulnerable road users, vision and visibility’ and ‘driver and system behaviour’ categories.
HORIBA MIRA has been carrying out active safety testing and guiding OEM technology development for more than a decade. The strength of its capability and experience was recently rewarded with full Euro NCAP testing accreditation in the active safety domain for both cars and light commercial vehicles.
As a vehicle research and testing centre, there is no higher accolade than being trusted by your industry to officially test against the safety standard rating for next-generation vehicle technology, and to help drive industry standards and best practice.
Futureproof testing facilities and infrastructure
With ADAS test equipment, industry-standard simulation tools, and hundreds of combined years’ engineering experience within its workforce, HORIBA MIRA has the capability to test all the ADAS systems that are found on today’s EVs at its 850-acre research facility in Nuneaton, UK. That’s the near-term direction of travel for road safety improvements taken care of.
But with it being widely recognised that eventually every form of transport on our roads will be automated – namely cars, buses and trucks – HORIBA MIRA has already taken steps to ensure the road to full automation will be as smooth as possible in the coming years.
The research and testing organisation’s ASSURED CAV proving ground is Europe’s most advanced driverless car testing facility and offers full journey environments that can be used to test both ADAS and Connected and Automated Vehicle (CAV) technology in the most robust way.
Its ‘Highway’ environment is a completely level facility with a 300m diameter dynamic platform to test vehicles at their limit, while the ‘City’ zone is a configurable, connected urban and suburban driving environment. A dedicated multi-storey ‘Parking’ environment has also been added to test technology in confined spaces and support the development of self-parking systems.
With world-leading facilities and capability on-site, HORIBA MIRA is ready to embrace the testing that is required to safely deliver the higher levels of vehicle automation that will arrive in the future.
Pushing the development envelope
In the meantime, testing for many vehicle manufacturers that are bringing EVs to the road in the short term is centred around ensuring the latest ADAS technology is as robust as possible.
Rather than just doing a prescriptive test, we’re working with partners on benchmarking activities to see how testing can be evolved to identify any gaps in ADAS performance.
As a simple example, we’ve found that if you change the clothing on a target dummy – they usually wear black tops and blue trousers – and dress them in all black, that can have an impact on how well those target dummies are detected by the vehicle being tested.
Likewise, when you’ve got an adult target dummy next to a child pedestrian target dummy to simulate them crossing the road, that can lead to them not being detected as a threat by some vehicles. But if you take one of those actors away, the vehicle checks as it should.
We’ve uncovered some interesting results with some ADAS systems which show they may not necessarily perform as well in a real-world environment as they do in a prescriptive test.
Learning through repeatable testing
Another capability at HORIBA MIRA that is bridging the gap between prescriptive test and real-world performance, as well as supporting the drive for ADAS robustness, is being able to test vehicles within multi-actor, multi-event scenarios.
Testing scenarios in isolation captures some data. But being able to run scenarios back-to-back and in a controlled environment enables different challenges to be solved with different sensors. If a vehicle fails a progression test on a Monday, OEMs need to have the ability to change it and test it for a positive outcome in exactly the same conditions on Tuesday.
Accurate repeatability during ADAS testing is achieved in a number of ways on the proving ground. First, human drivers are replaced by robot drivers. This removes any potential for human error. And GPS coordinates are used extensively to make sure vehicles and dummy targets – cyclists, pedestrians, motorcyclists etc. – are synchronised to move in the same way and to follow the same trajectory every time.
Such is the strength of HORIBA MIRA’s testing protocols, that even if it is conducting the same ADAS test six months apart, it can guarantee that all the data and methodologies are in place to ensure the performance of the system that’s under the microscope is always the sole priority and that everything else within that particular environment is noise that can be discounted.
Results can be compared and challenged across various environments at HORIBA MIRA to underline system performance. Using simulation facilities allows OEMs to start to develop ADAS systems within certain scenarios, before confidence-building physical testing then gets underway on the proving ground. The next step is to take testing and learning out onto the public roads, courtesy of a network of scanned test corridors that are located just outside the HORIBA MIRA gates.
The links between these three testing phases provides vehicle manufacturers correlated system performance data every step of the way and allows them to secure additional efficiencies.
For instance, innovations in the utilisation of industry standard test tools and test processes both from a technical and operational perspective enable engineers to maximise testing efficiency. In some instances, it’s possible to more than double the number of scenarios that can be executed per day, allowing OEMs to feed valuable insights into their system performance via the test data more quickly.
And because tests are targeted and results are achieved faster, the days of driving millions of miles on the road to map every environment and test every possible permutation are gone – as is the negative environmental impact that goes with it.
ADAS technology that can be trusted
“Supporting OEMs in the development and delivery of ADAS technology that works effectively is key to securing consumer trust and continuing to raise the safety bar,” explains Ashley Patton, Chief Engineer – ADAS at HORIBA MIRA.
“In doing the work we do, we’re making sure motorists don’t have a reason to get into their car and switch off all the ADAS systems because they consider them to be an annoyance or an unnecessary distraction. That defeats the purpose of why these systems have been developed and the role they perform.
“By developing ADAS technology and addressing performance gaps, vehicle manufacturers can be confident their systems work in the real world and motorists can be happy enough to forget they’re there. But when an emergency situation arises, these systems must react robustly and not trigger false positives, or even worse, go into a false negative state when they’re expected to intervene.
“Our ADAS work has a laser-sharp focus on developing test programmes that can interrogate the real-world performance of systems so OEMs can improve their quality and build a level of trust that will continue to support the shift to electrified transportation.”
Solutions Leader – ASSURED CAV
