Geo-referenced Analysis and Virtual Measurement Campaign (VMC®)

Since many years, our department »Dynamics, Loads and Environmental Data« (German: Dynamik, Lasten und Umgebungsdaten / DLU) is investigating the analysis and processing of environmental data to support vehicle engineering with respect to:

• Durability and Reliability
• Consumption and Emission
• Validation of advanced driving assistance systems (ADAS) and other functions towards autonomous driving (AD)

The combination of individual drivers or operators with the diversity of the missions and environmental conditions leads to what we summarize with the notion of usage variability. Accordingly, we observe a large scatter of e.g., loads or fuel consumption in the field, which needs to be mastered for user group-oriented vehicle engineering. The estimation of load and consumption distributions and the derivation of design targets for the virtual product development process are typical applications for the technology. In addition, the validation of (safety critical) ADAS/AD functions is extremely demanding.

Based on the experience of numerous industry projects, we developed a software and service suite for handling usage variability during engineering and operation.

We combine geo-referenced data analysis, planning and evaluation of measurement campaigns, statistical modelling, as well as simulation and optimization to serve the corresponding challenges. In particular, we offer the following modules: 

Application Tested and Further Developed in Practice with Industry Partners

An implementation of the VMC® concept for application in the truck industry has been supported several years ago by a joint project with the truck manufacturers DAF-Trucks, Daimler, MAN Nutzfahrzeuge, SCANIA, and Volvo Trucks.

An early application of that technology was, among others, executed in a common project with Volkswagen Nutzfahrzeuge and reported during the VDI conference Commercial Vehicles 2015 in Eindhoven. In this case, the planning of the campaign and the derivation of usage parameters was supported by VMC® GeoStatistics, the measured data were evaluated using VMC® GeoLDA and extrapolated to load distributions using U·Sim.

Because of the rapidly growing availability of potentially relevant data (e.g., traffic) and because of upcoming new requirements with respect to specific applications (e.g., E-mobility), we are continuously developing and extending the database as well as the collection of methods. Thus, today, several fields of application already make use of VMC® GeoStatistics .