8. Virtual Integration in the Development Process of ADAS

In spite of the complexity and large variety of cars, electronic stability programs can still be tested in elaborate real test drives. However, due to the high system complexity, the complexity of the test cases, and the required scope of tests, this is not economically feasible for advanced driver assistance systems with environment perception. The repeatability of the tests, even under the exact same testing conditions and procedure, in practice does not exist due to various potential and occasionally unknown or disregarded influences. Therefore, the test results are not reproducible – firstly, because functionally relevant characteristics can depend on the interaction between multiple road users, and secondly, because they can be subject to complex interactions between boundary conditions such as the blinding effect of a low sun and its reflection on a wet road at a certain angle. The features of currently used advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) access environmental information that is collected by several different sensors and processed to obtain a representation of the environment. To serve their purpose, these functions utilize different actuators and components of the human-machine interface. This architectural distribution of assistance functions to different control units and vehicle components results in a strong interconnection that must be considered during testing and that drives up the costs of testing. This chapter will highlight the advantages resulting from virtual integration and describe its functionality and limitations.