Hardware-in-the-loop simulation for autonomous driving

This paper describes the design and execution of a hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) simulation system as an integral part of various autonomous driving programs. The intent of this work is to design and develop a laboratory environment to support the development, test and verification of many functions and algorithms related to sensor-guided autonomous driving. The focus is on extending conventional HIL simulation to vehicle interactions with other vehicles on traffic and with simulated surrounding environment sensed by simulated sensors. Included in the HIL simulation are active steering system with combined electric power steer and active front steer actuators, four corner by-wire electromechanical brakes and their corresponding electric control units, in addition to the prototype processors, which are all connected under the same communication architecture as implemented in a prototype vehicle. As a result, this HIL simulation seamlessly bridges the gap between pure offline simulation and in-vehicle development, and greatly shortens the research and development process.