HIL Latency Profiling for Accurate Autonomous Vehicle Simulation

The patent applies preliminary action by conducting Hardware-in-Loop (HIL) testing before actual autonomous vehicle deployment. The HIL setup simulates real-world sensor inputs and processing pipelines in advance, capturing latency profiles and behavioral characteristics that can then be used to configure virtual simulations. This preliminary real-world-based testing ensures that the simulation environment is pre-calibrated to match actual vehicle behavior, improving prediction accuracy without requiring extensive post-deployment validation.

The patent applies copying by creating accurate virtual replicas of the autonomous vehicle system through HIL testing. The HIL process captures real-world latency profiles, sensor behaviors, and processing characteristics, then copies these into a virtual simulation environment. This virtual copy behaves identically to the physical vehicle, allowing extensive safety testing to be performed in simulation rather than requiring equivalent real-world testing, thus maintaining software safety validation while dramatically improving development efficiency.

The patent applies parameter changes by dynamically adjusting simulation parameters based on empirical HIL testing data. Specifically, the HIL testing measures actual latency profiles across different sensor types, processing pipelines, and operational conditions. These measured latency parameters are then imported into the virtual simulation configuration, replacing generic or estimated values. This parameter calibration ensures that the simulation accurately reflects real-world temporal behavior while maintaining simulation speed, as the parameters are derived from efficient HIL measurements rather than requiring continuous real-world testing.