Simulations on consumer tests: A systematic evaluation approach in an industrial case study

Context: Consumer tests for vehicles have long a tradition of almost two decades in Europe to assess vehicular safety abilities. For active safety systems like an emergency braking guard, different consumer-test-organizations (CTOs) around the world intensify now the challenges for automotive Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) in terms of specific test protocols. Objective: This work focuses on the systematic generation of possible vehicle trajectories within the allowed tolerance ranges for a simulation environment. It is of great interest to which extent the different test parameters will affect the brake timepoints in each test case as well as the residual velocity in case of a collision with a target vehicle. Method: A formal model using a graph-based representation of the allowed variances based on relevant time-points allows the selection of relevant trajectories as test cases. These trajectories are simulated afterwards to investigate its influence on the system´s performance. Results: The systematic approach unveiled varying action points in time of the software of an emergency braking guard, which could influence the overall result of a consumer test. Conclusion: The use of a structured simulative approach for evaluating an active safety system during the development process enables a more focused feedback and supports extensive tests on real proving grounds by systematic and automated robustness analyses for example.