Automotive Industry Insights

SmartLoad

Project duration: 2018 – October 2021
Funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF)

The relevance of SmartLoad for this report lies in its focus on testing and validation in the development of ADAS functionality, especially through a study on the usability of the OTX standard for scenario-based testing.

In the SmartLoad research project new development and test methods for failure prediction and prevention are developed to ensure safety and reliability for individual components as well as for the autonomous electrical vehicle itself. The results are evaluated with reference applications from the areas of interurban individual mobility, commercial vehicles, and public transport.

One way to ensure reliability is the usage of redundant components, which increases the costs of the vehicle. SmartLoad develops new concepts for a functional safe design by optimal and cost-efficient usage of redundant components and functions, with simultaneous intelligent condition monitoring and damage prediction.

In SmartLoad the new development process uses modular and standardized methods to prove the influence of interactions between automation functions and damage mechanisms on the reliability of the vehicle and its components. The elements of the development process are a scenario-based simulation of the driving and working task of the vehicle, the use of damage models in reference architecture, and test execution on distributed and connected component test beds. The new test methods and processes are based on the ASAM standards OpenDRIVE, OpenSCENARIO, and OTX.
In the scope of the project the specification and execution of a scenario-based test using OTX and OSC 1.0 for the test and scenario description conducted in collaboration with RWTH Aachen with a positive result. The results of this study were presented as input for the ASAM Test Specification Study Group and did contribute to the discussions on the role of the standard OTX for scenario-based testing.
The joint project is coordinated by AVL Deutschland GmbH, with Forschungszentrum Informatik, IEW (University of Stuttgart), IPEK and FAST of the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Schaeffler Technologies AG & Co. KG, and RA Consulting GmbH participating as partners.