Validation of a coupled Lane Keeping and Adaptive Cruise Control inside a high fidelity driving simulator scenario

Since the first cars were developed, automotive industries have been focusing on two main aspects: improving efficiency, thus reducing costs and increasing power generation (considering environmental issues as well), and trying to reduce as much as possible accidents, fatalities and injuries (e.g. ADAS). These two objectives led to a new need, which nowadays belongs to the process of development of new cars: simulations. Being able to virtually reproduce what would happen in the real world allows engineers and technicians to reduce testing time and to avoid possible accidents during the design process (e.g. under-estimation of loads), which, as a consequence, means reducing costs. The whole world of simulators relies on software packages which must be able to generate scenarios for virtual tests. In order to design a simulation scenario, different aspects are to be considered, from the vehicle editing to the data logging and so on. As usual, the higher the cost of the software, the better it will be, thus leading to a higher number of editable features and a much easier-to-use interface. As there are many possibilities available, the user can choose the best one depending on his/her needs. In this Thesis Project, two driving simulator software packages have been analysed: LGSVL, offered by LG, and WorldSim, belonging to the VI-Grade world (one of the leading companies dealing with driving simulation software). LGSVL is open source, thus not requiring any license. However, as a drawback, it is not very user-friendly. The editing of vehicles and simulation scenarios is quite poor and not straightforward, requiring some programming skills and, even in case of simple changes, the access to a Unity license, thus introducing a cost. On the other hand, WorldSim requires a commercial license; this leads to a much easier-to-use simulation software on all aspects that have been briefly introduced before. As the reader may realize, WorldSim is by far the better between the two. Addfor S.p.A, which has hosted my curricular stage, has a partnership with Danisi Engineering that, as an advanced automotive company, offered me the possibility of using and analysing WorldSim on their static simulator at Nichelino (TO). After some weeks of debugging and analysing the software, I had the chance of validating a control model of a vehicle, coupling the Lane Keeping Assist (LKA) (lateral control) to the Adaptive Cruise Control (ACC) (longitudinal control). Thanks to the Radar and Lane detector sensors which have been added to the user vehicle, by streaming information from/to the simulation via UDP, the Simulink model is able to act on the steering wheel angle and on the throttle and brake pedals. After several months inside the world of driving simulators and after having applied an ADAS on one of them, I could realize the growing importance of this software. It is now more than clear that automotive industries should think about investing in this field, because it can lead to a strong reduction in costs and a huge improvement in terms of passenger safety, thus leading to more and more possible customers.