A platform for simulation and evaluation of driver assistance and information systems

Driving simulators are a valuable tool for virtual prototyping and testing of driver assistance and information systems. They provide a means for testing system concepts and the human-machine interface in early phases of the design process with the driver in the loop on the virtual road in a virtual traffic. This virtual engineering approach results in less design errors and more mature designs when entering the phase of physical prototyping. Besides the well-known components of a driving simulator such as visual database, vehicle model, real-time image generator, projection system, mock-up, and sound system this approach requires additional functionalities for generating and running real-time virtual prototypes of the targeted products, designing usability tests, executing these experiments, sampling and evaluating data. Furthermore appropriate data exchange and recording mechanisms are needed. The paper describes the corresponding technical and user requirements and proposes a software platform as a suitable solution, which interconnects the world of driving simulators with the world of virtual prototyping tools for the HMI, bridging some additional functional gaps. The implementation SwitchBoard is described and application experiences from other projects are presented as illustrative examples.