In the past, engineers used finished cars to test vehicles on test roads or on public roads to detect vehicle performance and safety response. However, certain restrictions (such as weather and rough road conditions) may make it difficult for engineers to perform on the road in time. Repeatable testing. In addition, because many subsystems of electric vehicles depend on each other, the construction of electric vehicles is extremely complicated. This complexity coupled with ever-shortened development cycles and costs make automotive test engineers face severe challenges.
To solve these problems, Subaru replaces the actual road conditions for verification testing with NI HIL simulation solutions based on NI PXI products and LabVIEW software. With the HIL system, Subaru can eliminate environmental factors and virtualize the entire system before it is actually diagnosed. Efficient and thoroughly tested vehicle's embedded controller in the environment.
"With NI PXI products and LabVIEW, we were able to fully implement custom HIL systems in one to two weeks and develop the software we needed," said Daisuke Umiguchi of the Subaru Electric Power Plant Research and Experiment Department. 'This helps us Reduced product acquisition costs to only about one-third of other solutions, and because we are familiar with LabVIEW, our software development costs are only about one-sixth compared to hiring external developers.
Subaru plans to use the test system for final quality inspections during the final stages of electric car development and eventually extend its application to all types of cars. By using this system, Subaru expects to reduce labor time by half compared to traditional methods.
For more information on NI HIL systems for vehicle simulation and testing, visit ni.com/en-us/innovations/automotive/hardware-in-the-loop.html.