Page 25 - ATZ11 November 2019 Professional

FIGURE 3 Software architecture of the
Volkswagen simulator (© Volkswagen) Driving experience
Road surface
Motion Seat belt Steering wheel
interaction IPG CarMaker
platform pretensioner and pedals
server

User Simulation core Matlab/
interface Panthera Solo Simulink

Functional
Operating Unity, HMD H3S Virtual engineering Driver assistance
concepts test drive systems
platform
Other Modular
Visualization Audio road users connection

ments has a fundamental meaning. For DYNAMIC DRIVING SIMULATORS the Wizard of Oz development tool.
the verification of this third main goal, The disadvantages of this approach are
relevant mock-up elements have to be The extension of the seat buck with a that physical components cannot easily
ad justed automatically at high precision motion platform and the corresponding be swapped. This was one of the require-
and in a short time within the develop- limitation of movable weight have led to ments for the described application
ment tool. specific weight-optimized mock-ups at a scenarios.
big part of the existing dynamic driving In conclusion, every development tool
simulators, FIGURE 1 (right). These mock- has advantages for special use cases in
QUALIFICATION OF EXISTING
ups can be changed for a specific use comparison to the other tools. Never-
DEVELOPMENT TOOLS
case but this means direct comparisons theless, with the use of examples in the
Based on these three main goals, devel- between variants are complicated [5]. explanation it was shown which disad-
opment tools available on the market Today, only control or display elements vantages complicate a complete usage
were checked for their qualification for are flexible designed in some concepts in relation to the requirements of the vir-
the described use cases. Due to reasons for positioning and visualization content. tual interior evaluations.
of clearness, the range is limited to prop- Furthermore, driving simulators with
erties which complicate the usage in 3-D projection systems are limited
NEW DRIVING SIMULATOR
the scope of virtual interior evaluations. because of the required consistency
ON HMD BASIS
Existing development tools include stat- between virtual (rendered) and real
ic and dynamic driving simulators, vehi- components for interior evaluations On the basis of the knowledge gained,
cle in the loop as well as Wizard of Oz due to the given visualization latencies. Volkswagen developed a new dynamic
which will be presented in more detail Both examples significantly restrict driving simulator concept, FIGURE 2.
in the following. their usage for the use cases of the vir- The attempt was made to combine the
tual interior evaluations required here. respective advantages of the simulators
in a single tool [7]. Hereafter, the essen-
STATIC DRIVING SIMULATORS
tial components of this dynamic and
VEHICLE IN THE LOOP
Actual adjustable and virtual seat bucks, HMD-based concept are presented.
FIGURE 1 (left), as static driving simula- The vehicle-in-the-loop development tool
tors, with a Head-mounted Display is based on a complete functional vehicle
BASIC SOFTWARE AND
(HMD) as visualization system offer where the real world is superimposed
HARDWARE COMPONENTS
a high visual level of reality as well as partially or completely by virtual visual-
the highest variability [4]. Due to the ization contents using an HMD [6]. Disad- The simulation core is based on the Pan-
missing vestibular cues, these static vantageous in the view of the described thera Solo software suite, the operating
versions are mostly appropriate for use cases are the minor variability of the system of the Dutch simulator manufac-
static evaluations and not for driving physical existing vehicle components and turer Cruden. This suite is part of the
situations with regard to simulator the limited scenario complexity. software architecture, FIGURE 3. This
sickness. Therefore, seat bucks can operating system is responsible for the
only cover a limited part of the evalua- synchronization of all software compo-
WIZARD OF OZ
tion content of the virtual interior eval- nents and the control of the motion plat-
uations. In addition, due to the missing Similar to a driving school car, the form. Two models can be used for the
acceleration stimuli, no realistic head co-driver’s seat or one of the back seats vehicle dynamics simulation: The first is
motions can be generated. is converted into a second driver seat in developed internally by Cruden, the sec-
ATZ worldwide 11|2019 19