Vehicle Control Function Simulation With Distributed Sensor Models
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Solution Overview
Problem
The simulation of complex environments for control unit testing in vehicles, involving multiple environmental sensors and dynamic data exchange between computing units, is computationally demanding and often limited by data transfer and processing efficiency in classic hardware-in-the-loop simulations.
Innovation Solution
The method involves distributing sensor models across multiple computing units with direct access to static environmental data, reducing data exchange by storing static data locally and transforming it into a data structure format before simulation, allowing for efficient parallel processing and real-time calculation.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Productivity
If sensor models are distributed across multiple computing units with centralized data storage, then processing parallelism is improved, but data transfer time and communication overhead increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the simulation system into multiple computing units (first computing unit, second computing unit, etc.), each responsible for specific sensor models and their associated static environmental data. This segmentation enables parallel processing of different sensor data streams while minimizing inter-unit communication by keeping related data and processing logic together.
Solution Approach 2:
Each computing unit is equipped with directly accessible memory for storing static environmental data locally. This local quality principle ensures that each computing unit has fast access to its required data without needing to fetch it from centralized storage, thereby reducing data transfer time and improving processing speed.
2Speed
If static environmental data is stored in directly accessible memory of each computing unit, then data access speed is improved, but memory usage across the system increases
Solution Approach 1:
The static environmental data is segmented and distributed to only those computing units that require it for their specific sensor models. This selective distribution avoids redundant storage of the entire dataset across all computing units, optimizing the balance between access speed and memory usage.
3Measurement precision
If complex sensor models are simulated in real-time with high precision, then measurement precision is improved, but computing load increases
Solution Approach 1:
Complex sensor models are divided into multiple smaller sub-models distributed across different computing units. Each computing unit processes a specific subset of sensor models with high precision, while the overall system manages the distributed computation. This segmentation maintains measurement precision for each sensor type while distributing the computing load across multiple units.
Solution Approach 2:
Static environmental data is pre-processed and stored in directly accessible memory before simulation begins. This preliminary action prepares the data in an optimized format, reducing the computational complexity during real-time simulation while maintaining measurement precision.
Data Source
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AI summary
The invention relates to a simulator (5) and a method (1) for testing a function (fECU) of a control unit (2) in a vehicle (3a). The vehicle comprises environmental sensors, e.g. radar (6a, 6b), camera (6c) and radio receiver (6d), which act as inputs for the control unit function (fECU) or the control unit (2), wherein these are simulated as a vehicle model (12a), sensor models (13) and an environment model (14) in a distributed manner in a simulator (5) comprising a plurality of computation units (4a, 4b, 4c) and a memory. The simulation of the control unit function (fECU) and the simulation of the vehicle model (12a), sensor models (13) and environment model (14) acting as inputs therefor are launched synchronously on the computation units (4a, 4b, 4c), wherein data is exchanged by way of the memory. A high simulation speed is achieved by the simulation being distributed over a plurality of computation units (4a, 4b, 4c) and data exchange via the memory. The control unit (2) does not necessarily have to be actually present for the simulation. Traffic situations can be simulated by importing data from other vehicles (3b), roads (8), buildings (9), traffic signs (10) or light signals (11), for instance.