Proof of Concept for Automotive Camera and Radar

Automotive sensors enabling Advanced Driver-Assistance Systems (ADAS) and Automated Driving (AD) functionalities have seen a huge increase in research, development and application within the last 10 years, with no sign of this trend reversing anytime soon. Consequently, the amount of requirements from original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and the sensor portfolio of TIER1 suppliers are steadily growing. Similarly, the tool landscape for automotive sensor simulation is continuously widening, while an imminent consolidation is unlikely. Flexibility is needed by all stakeholders. This means that different tools with different purposes need to be enabled to carry out co-simulation.
Recently, IPG and Ansys are cooperating to develop an interface that allows such co-simulations between their tools CarMaker and AVXcelerate, respectively. Valeo has been given the opportunity to test a prototype interface extensively. In this presentation we show two use-cases of co-simulations, where the scenario set-up and the vehicle dynamics are provided by IPG CarMaker and the environmental sensing is enabled by Ansys AVXcelerate sensor models’ simulations.

• A camera injection Hardware-In-The-Loop (HIL) system:
  A 24-bit raw camera image is generated by AVX and injected into the device under test (DUT). A specific hardware is used to emulate the image sensor of the DUT. Use cases are system tests and validation for challenging requirements, such as extreme lighting conditions or rapid changes of lighting conditions, for example at entering or exiting tunnels or when detecting other vehicles during night time conditions.
• The simulation of an authentic radar raw signal after analog-to-digital (A/D) conversion:
  Automotive radar receive signals encode the basic information (range, velocity, azimuth and elevation angles) of a given detection in a data stream that can easily be many-thousand times as long as the very basic information. It is highly desirable to be able to parameterize the geometrical set-up of the antenna and the transmitted waveform with respect to, e.g., sampling frequency, transmit power, as well as number of chirps and their respective timings. Thus, an authentic raw signal data stream can be achieved and the results of such virtual test drives can be evaluated in the original signal processing software modules of the DUT.

Our ongoing simulation project results show that the coupling interface is working well for our use cases and the Ansys physics-based sensor models can be used on top of the Carmaker platform. Further development of the interface is ongoing. We would like to thank IPG and Ansys for their effective collaboration and for giving us the opportunity to couple their tools.