Automotive Virtual Prototyping Day 2024

The rise of the software-defined vehicle (SDV) represents a paradigm shift in the automotive industry, where software innovation takes precedence over traditional hardware. Virtual prototyping plays a crucial role in this transition by enabling manufacturers to design, simulate, and test vehicle functionalities in a virtual environment.

This approach accelerates development cycles, reduces costs, and enhances the flexibility of vehicle architectures, allowing for continuous updates and feature integration post-production. By leveraging virtual prototyping tools, automotive companies can respond more quickly to market demands, enhance safety, and implement advanced technologies such as autonomous driving and connectivity.

This presentation explores the significant contributions of virtual prototypes to the evolution of SDVs, emphasizing its impact on efficiency, innovation, and sustainability in the automotive sector. 

Mercedes Benz presents how the VISION EQXX, their most efficient vehicle to date, was developed in just 20 months.

The presentation highlights the critical role of utilizing multiple testing platforms and a purpose-built Software-in-the-Loop system. It covers the feedback mechanisms within and between the testing platforms, as well as automation strategies that ensure high-quality software, accurate consumption predictions, and significantly reduced vehicle testing time. 

This presentation delves into a groundbreaking hybrid approach to unit testing that maximizes efficiency and precision.

By integrating TPT's TASMO for test case generation (Whitebox) with a functional test oracle and requirements observer (Blackbox) through a sophisticated TPT Assesslet structure, the testing process is streamlined. This method forms the foundation for software tests (SiL: back-to-back) and ensures thorough consideration of boundary conditions.

Attendees will discover how this innovative approach significantly enhances testing efficiency and reliability.

This presentation outlines the innovative methodology for developing AUTOSAR software and safety-critical components for high-voltage charging in electric vehicles using Matlab/Simulink and C.

Central to this approach is a highly automated testing strategy that ensures top quality and safety while allowing rapid and flexible adaptations. Rigorous testing of models, generated software, and components is achieved through extensive automation. Interface testing is streamlined via script-based generation and sophisticated monitoring, enabling seamless detection and tracking of changes in requirements, software, and tests.

This methodology has significantly improved the reliability and safety of high-voltage charging systems in electric vehicles. Employing a global test assessment has enhanced the depth and comprehensiveness of testing, with Time Partition Testing (TPT) playing a crucial supporting role.

This presentation explores the integration of the SiL (Software-in-the-Loop) methodology at Mercedes-AMG GmbH, demonstrating how its application has driven significant shift-left in the development process. 

It shares key experiences and insights from the implementation phase, highlighting the advantages of a centralized and scalable SiL infrastructure. 

Additionally, the presentation addresses the opportunities and challenges encountered during this transition, offering strategies to successfully navigate and leverage SiL methodologies for enhanced development efficiency. 

This presentation underscores the essential role of consistent requirements management across the entire automotive development process, serving as the foundation for both product creation and validation.

As Software-Defined Vehicle (SDV) development progresses, the central availability of requirements is becoming increasingly critical, especially when aiming to achieve the goal of deploying code within one day.

Through a reference implementation using TPT and Codebeamer, the presentation illustrates how requirements can be efficiently integrated into virtual product development to streamline and enhance the overall process.

The software-defined-vehicle (SDV) will require new testing architectures to handle the increased system complexity of moving to a centralized E/E architecture.

Volvo Cars will show their approach in the context of the Scalable Product Architecture (SPA) 2 platform used in the EX90. The central ECU software running on QNX is simulated on AWS Graviton CPUs while the mechatronic rim communication is provided through Restbus simulation. For the future SPA 3 platform the basic architecture remains in place while also introducing Synopsys Silver Level 3 virtual ECUs in between to simulate the Zone Controllers.

This presentation will also provide an outlook on how Synopsys aims to support cloud-native full system simulation scenarios like these more efficiently in the future. 

This presentation outlines the deployment experience of virtual MCUs (vMCUs) for internal software validation from a semiconductor supplier's perspective. By leveraging vMCUs, a wide range of software products, including low-level drivers, safety libraries, application code examples, and verification software, can be effectively validated.

The presentation highlights the key benefits of vMCUs, such as accelerated Time to Market, enhanced test coverage, reduced costs, and improved collaboration among development teams. It also provides insights into the potential challenges encountered, including simulation performance and the risk of simulation inaccuracies, and how these were successfully overcome.

Additionally, the presentation explores the application of functional block/IP models in RTL unit verification, which serves as a golden reference, ultimately enhancing the quality of the model.

Revolutionize product development by delivering provable Digital Twins of the Vehicle + Electronics,

dramatically reducing costs & time-to-market in a world of software-defined vehicles.  Deliver results today.

IPG CarMaker + Synopsys Silver combination enables:

• Significant software workflow time improvement:  Reduce ADAS Software-validation from weeks down to hours

• Traceable and provable correlation to reality between a physical vehicle and its simulated Digital-Twin

• Important for proving the safety case and providing liability protection

• Multiple levels of virtual or physical to optimize your test strategy (Purpose Driven Fidelity)

• Powerful shift-left capability across MiL – SiL – HiL - ViL

• More testing, much earlier for less cost

At Mercedes-Benz AG, full control of our software enables architecture-level operations. We’ll demonstrate how state-of-the-art development and quality assurance infrastructure supports this.

Virtual prototyping, with over 20 years of powertrain virtualization experience, enhances efficiency and scalability across domains. Now essential in all projects, our virtual testing platform handles both basic and functional control unit features. Leveraging level 4 virtualization, we achieve deep insights with full automation, even in early project phases.

Engine and transmission deliver joined functionalities that have a major impact on emission. With the combination of a real engine and a virtual transmission including a virtual transmission control unit, one can shift corresponding tests from powertrain test benches to engine test benches.

Motivated by systems engineering method to verify and validate requirements in a less complex environment this talk shows the promising results achieved by combining a V8 engine with a virtual eight-speed transmission.

We don't just want to show you what we're working on right now. We invite you to influence future Synopsys product innovations.

In this final presentation fo the day we talk about our vision of virtual prototyping, ideas and the improvements of our product and service portfolio.

Our vision is to create a scalable, flexible ecosystem that supports changing customer needs, streamlines workflows, and integrates seamlessly with new technologies to set the stage for a future characterized by agility, speed, and growth.

Let’s discuss the most important capabilities for Automotive.