rFpro partners with SMLL to deploy an enhanced digital twin of its test network
UK-based driving simulation company, rFpro, has partnered with London’s Smart Mobility Living Lab (SMLL) with the aim of developing an advanced digital twin of its urban testbed for Connected and Autonomous Vehicles (CAVs). The new digital twin will capture all the elements of the test environment with unprecedented realism and enable vehicle manufacturers and technology suppliers to accelerate the development of CAVs.
An accurate digital twin allows simulated tests to be carried out that correlate with real-world experiments, greatly increasing the rate at which testing is possible, and enabling customers to prepare more fully and effectively in advance of physical testing. Tests in the real-world environment can be used to validate the simulated tests, ensuring they are highly accurate and reliable.
“Digital twins help vehicle manufacturers to significantly accelerate the development of CAVs, saving time and cost, because virtual testing is so much more productive than physical testing,” explains Matt Daley, rFpro’s Managing Director. “Testing in a virtual environment is the only cost-effective way to introduce self-learning systems to the limitless number of scenarios that can occur in the real world. Most AI systems learn by experience, but training using real-road data is too slow.”
The SMLL’s existing digital twin has already introduced a number of users to the benefits of CAV simulation. rFpro’s advanced digital twin will extend these benefits by significantly improving the fidelity of the simulated environment. These enhanced features will include a vehicle dynamics grade road surface, accurate material definition and precise weather conditions.
The routes within SMLL provide a comprehensive set of features representing most real-world urban situations typical in London and the UK, including complex intersections, roundabouts, bus lanes and other shared mobility spaces for numerous vehicle types and road users. TRL’s heritage in safety, risk assessment and regulation within the mobility sector enabled the SMLL to select these features based on their suitability for CAV manufacturers and tier 1 suppliers to test and verify their systems as fully capable for UK urban operation.
The SMLL, part of wider network of facilities within the UK called CAM testbed UK, is unique among facility providers in that, with support from Cisco, it has one of the most advanced real-time, real-world monitoring systems in the public domain. Data collected at the roadside locations can be used to enrich the accuracy of the simulation by feeding in real-world scenarios and local traffic behaviours and also validated by supporting physical testing at the same locations.
TRL’s experience with simulating scenarios using detailed real-world incident data enables the SMLL to support the full testing cycle from safety case development through to real-world validation of vehicle behaviour. This includes not only the vehicle’s reaction to the physical road layout and surface but also the scenarios generated from interactions with pedestrians, buses, cyclists and other traffic.
“Simulation is a critical part of the vehicle development process and is key to getting CAVs on to our roads safely,” said Richard Cuerden, TRL’s Academy Director. “The SMLL is already the world’s most advanced urban test facility for CAVs but we believe the addition of rFpro’s advanced digital twin will offer significant additional value to our customers.”
rFpro has an ever-growing library of more than 100 locations of highly accurate digital twins from around the world. It includes public road routes, proving grounds, test facilities and race tracks.
About rFpro
rFpro is a simulation environment for the automotive and motorsport industries. It is used for the development and testing of autonomous vehicles, ADAS, vehicle dynamics and human factor studies - essentially anything that involves driving a vehicle. rFpro’s automotive customers are the world’s largest car manufacturers, tier one suppliers and sensor developers. rFpro enables them to simulate, test and validate new sensors, control systems and vehicle hardware systems. The top 10 OEMs that were early adopters of rFpro technology have already launched road cars which started their development, not on a test track, but in a virtual environment using rFpro. In motorsport we are the market leader of professional driver-in-the-loop simulator software - rFpro customers are champions of every leading motorsport category. rFpro maintains the largest library of digital road models (digital twins) including test tracks and race circuits for F1, NASCAR, WEC, IMSA, Indy, Formula E, Super-GT and Australian V8 Supercars. rFpro’s vision is for every driving simulator experiment to be conducted using the rFpro engineering-focused simulation engine. On every driving simulator, local or cloud-based, rFpro will form a fundamental part of vehicle developments.