Virtual Integration

While vehicle dynamics control systems can still be validated in real driving tests at great expense despite all their complexity and diversity of variants, this is already no longer feasible today for driver assistance systems with environment perception due to the system complexity, the complexity of the test cases and the necessary scope of testing. Even if the tests are supposedly performed in the same way, the repeatability of tests under exactly the same conditions is impossible in practice due to numerous and sometimes unknown or ignored influences. Thus, the reproducibility of results is not given because, on the one hand, function-relevant features may involve the necessary interaction of several road users and, on the other hand, because they may be subject to a complex interplay of general conditions. These may be glare from a low sun and simultaneous reflection on a wet road surface at a certain angle. The functions of the current Driver Assistance System (DAS) access ambient information that has sometimes been collected by several sensors of different functionalities and processed in a joint environment representation. To fulfill their functional goals, these functions make use of different actuators and components of the human–machine interface (HMI). This architectural distribution of assistance functions across different ECUs and vehicle components results in a strong interconnection that has to be taken into account during testing, which increases the testing effort. This chapter will highlight the advantages resulting from virtual integration and describe its functionality and limitations.