Connected Vehicles - A Testing Approach and Methodology 2021-26-0450

With the introduction of Connected Vehicles, it is possible to extend the limited horizon of vehicles on the road by collective perceptions, where vehicles periodically share their information with other vehicles and servers using cloud. Nevertheless, by the time the connected vehicle spread expands, it is critical to understand the validation techniques which can be used to ensure a flawless transfer of data and connectivity. Connected vehicles are mainly characterized by the smartphone application which is provided to the end customers to access the connectivity features in the vehicle. The end result which is delivered to the customer is through the integrated telematics unit in the vehicle which communicates through a communication layer with the cloud platform. The cloud server in turn interacts with the final application layer of the mobile application given to the customer.

As a general practice considering the final end objective, the connected vehicle validation is limited to only application layer in most of the OEMs. In this work, we focus on validation of all the four layers involved namely, Physical hardware layer, Communication layer, Cloud platform and Application layer in order to provide an impeccable experience to the customer while using the end application which is driven by the data sent by the telematics unit over cloud server. A mini hardware in loop setup is devised using all the peripheral ECUs in the vehicles which interact with the telematics controller to share the relevant vehicle information. A load box and CAN simulation is used to apply varied use cases and replicate the in vehicle scenarios and assess the response of TCU in conjunction with the coordinating partner ECU. GPS simulator is involved to simulate different road trajectories and evaluate the performance of TCU with respect to location coordinates. Varied use cases related to network unavailability, change in service provider, handshaking, data security and other related aspects were validated to judge the performance of the cloud platform and application layer. The system was also subjected to test cases simulating Over stress scenarios and Failsafe test conditions.

The results indicated that connectivity of a connected vehicle hugely depends upon the advanced driver assistance system sensors and other peripheral ECUs in a vehicle. This study also established that, in-lab testing doesn’t suffice the requirements pertaining to parameters which require actual vehicle level validation where the telematics performance depends upon the real time environmental factors such as different weather scenarios, tunnel/basement topography and mountainous terrain.