2022 VI-GRADE ZERO PROTOTYPES SUMMIT

Due to the considerable costs and times involved in setting up real experiments, Modelling and Simulation (M&S) have become an indispensable part of all research, development, test, and validation of CAV technology and products. A wide range of (all-inclusive) advanced simulation software, tools and solutions are available in the market, ranging from free, open-source software and packages to expensive commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) products and rigs from various global vendors. The main limitation of all the existing all-inclusive solution tools is that they are generally good in one or a few M&S domains (such as vehicle, actuator, sensor, road, terrain, traffic, and so on) but have limitations on interoperability, flexibility and scalability. By increasing the complexity and the number of functionalities of CAV systems and products, and also the requirements of running hundreds of thousands of scenario variations, it becomes apparent that no single simulation tool is capable of running large scale complex simulation with enough levels of flexibility, fidelity and comprehensiveness, especially for real-time applications and production level Verification and Validation (V&V). Interoperable simulation is a promising alternative solution to address some of the current M&S challenges in CAV domain. Interoperability refers to the capabilities of exchanging the simulation models or tasks or co-simulation in a distributed environment. This paper proposes a novel systemic approach and solution for simulation interoperability to integrate various simulation tools efficiently. The advantages and benefits of the proposed solution have been demonstrated in a number of use-cases and Proof-of-Concept projects at UTAC in the last two years. Furthermore, the application of the distributed simulation approach to the simulation in a novel ViL (Vehicle-in-the-Loop) setup at UTAC will also be presented in more detail as an example.