Scenario Generation for Virtual Test Driving on the Basis of Accident Databases

In the vehicle development process, virtual validation and scenariobased testing will play an even greater role than before. Time-to-market and cost savings are just two drivers of this trend. A crucial point for the use of virtual test driving is that not all scenario variations can be discovered in the real test drive or reconstructed on the proving ground.To ensure vehicle safety in all conceivable traffic situations, it is imperative to consider an extremely large number of scenarios in the tests. This can be achieved, among other things, by relying on scenario definitions from accident databases, which are a valuable source of scenarios because they classify types of accidents that have actually occurred as well as their severity.The challenge here is to transfer the large amount of data into the simulation in order to make it usable in virtual test driving. This means, for example, going beyond a replay simulation to use logical scenarios to generate variations of the meaningful parameters in conjunction with the existing test strategy.For this purpose, IPG Automotive developed a solution called ScenarioRRR (Record, Replay, Rearrange) to transform measurement data into scenarios. This solution can be used with accident databases and other sources to provide the relevant elements for virtual test driving. The captured trajectories of dynamic road users can thus be placed on road definitions to significantly increase test diversity and coverage.In this paper, experiences from different use cases with accident databases and resulting boundary conditions will be explained.