Virtual Testing of Advanced Driving Assistance Systems

This paper presents some results on the development and testing of new solutions in the field of driving automation. The introduction of increasing levels of vehicle automation aimed at enhancing road safety requires a renewed approach to the research and development process and needs a multi-actor environment where the innovation can be tested. Indeed, vehicle automation spans several scientific disciplines and it is becoming exceedingly difficult and too costly for a single research innovation team to go in depth into all technologies and solutions. This is shifting the innovation process toward a multidisciplinary approach in which the only way to ensure an easy, rapid, efficient and scalable introduction of the required innovation is to adopt integrated and complex testing platforms for the simulation of automation solutions, based on a modular architecture, where independent components can be developed and then integrated and tested in a multi-actor environment. A platform for virtual testing is presented herein and employed to assess the performance of an integrated driving assistance solution based on computing appropriate surrogate measures of safety that allow for the transition between different automation logics in free-flow, car-following and emergency braking conditions.