Design validation testing of vehicle instrument cluster using machine vision and hardware-in-the-loop

This paper presents an advanced testing system, combining hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) and machine vision technologies, for automated design validation testing of a vehicle instrument cluster. In the system, a HIL set-up supported by model-based approaches simulates vehicle network in real-time, and provides all essential signals to the instrument cluster under test. The machine vision system with novel image processing algorithms is designed to perform function tests by detecting gauges, warning lights/tell-tales, patterns and text displays. The system developed greatly eases the task of tedious validation testing, and makes onerous repeated tests possible.