The life cycle of a car starts long before its release and before it hits the road. The road to market can be a very long one. Development and testing to maturity involves many complicated and time-consuming processes. Car manufacturers and race teams test their cars at company owned proving grounds or test tracks where roads have been designed to replicate real-world conditions. Cars are shipped all over the world to be driven in extreme conditions like the jungles of Brazil or the mountains of New Zealand. If a manufacturer misses the cold weather testing in Europe, cars and entourage are shipped or flown to New Zealand to complete the testing process.
Ansible Motion designs and builds Driver-in-the-Loop (DIL) simulators that are used by automotive constructors to develop and test vehicles in virtual worlds. Ansible Motion focuses on ‘engineering-class’ simulators that are so advanced that they can be used to validate road car safety vehicle systems, sign off vehicle settings and predict how a car will perform before actually creating a physical prototype cars.
Done properly, DIL simulation can actually offer a variety of benefits over physical testing of prototype vehicles. However, its effectiveness hinges entirely on a simulator's ability to realistically engage human drivers / occupants. That's harder than it sounds, and one of the biggest issues is getting motion and vision systems to be responsive enough to convince real people that they are experienceing “real cars.”
Read the full article on the ScienceDirect Website