(Image Credit: Don McCullough)

The integration of multiple wireless systems into the vehicle is increasing test complexity and as a result automotive manufacturers are facing a wide range of new verification and validation challenges. In the mobile industry, manufacturers typically conduct testing in the early stages of the development cycle, when issues are less complicated, time-consuming and expensive to rectify. The automotive industry would benefit from adopting similar test methodologies in order to reduce development time and costs associated with delivering the Connected Car vision.

Future connected car applications such as enhanced traffic information services, multimedia services, vehicle relationship management (VRM) services and baseline emergency call capabilities will rely on the quality and robustness of the connectivity the vehicle is able to establish with the wireless network. This is why we expect wireless connectivity solutions to rely on a range of radio technologies including LTE, 3G and 2G, as well as Wi-Fi 802.11.

Progressive automotive manufacturers are adopting test methodologies that allow meaningful testing to be conducted much earlier in the vehicle development cycle. Virtual drive testing accurately replicates on-road radio network conditions in the lab test environment. This allows multiple air interfaces separately across worst-case network conditions, and interoperability between each air interface.

Virtual drive testing significantly reduces field-testing by accurately replicating field mobility scenarios.

Interference issues can arise due to the extreme proximity of multiple radio transceivers within the vehicle. In some cases, current state-of-the-art filter technology might not provide sufficient signal rejection to ensure reliability and performance. With test methodologies adopted from the mobile industry, many of these issues can be tackled cost effectively in the lab.

The virtual drive testing concept has been proven to accelerate product rollouts and quality assurance testing by integrating industry-leading lab and field test tools with a sophisticated test automation environment. Virtual drive testing significantly reduces field-testing by accurately replicating field mobility scenarios. Data captured in the field is used to build tests that replay drive or indoor routes in a virtual environment by emulating real-world RF network conditions in the laboratory. This replay can be performed with real network infrastructure or with a network simulator. 

The majority of wireless connectivity technology resides in an embedded Telematics Control Unit (TCU). Automotive wireless systems can use an Over-the-Air (OTA) test methodology to perform interoperability and performance testing first on the telematics unit including antenna cluster in the lab, and later on the prototype vehicle with the telematics unit and antenna cluster integrated.

Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO) OTA performance testing is used to assess user experience by replicating real-world radio network conditions as seen by the vehicle antenna cluster. MIMO OTA testing uses channel emulators in conjunction with either an anechoic chamber or a reverberation chamber to accurately emulate urban, suburban, rural, and indoor radio environments.

Automotive system developers also benefit from verifying that the data throughput performance of in-vehicle software and hardware modules complies with operator requirements from multiple geographic regions under real-world network conditions prior to final integration. The use of operator acceptance and data throughput tests enables the automotive industry to drastically reduce their performance-related test effort and highlight system issues that impact quality of experience much earlier in the vehicle development cycle.   

By adopting test methodologies deployed in the mobile device development industry, the automotive industry will be able to optimise test strategies to deliver high performance, reliable Connected Car wireless systems.

Should the Connected Car adopt test methodologies similar to mobile devices? Let us know in the comments.