IPG Automotive Releases Version 7.0 of CarMaker Product Family

Particularly in the fields of virtual prototypes and automotive systems engineering, the company has expanded its products that enable cross-domain testing in areas such as the development of advanced driver assistance systems and automated driving functions, powertrains or vehicle dynamics systems.

The fast and detailed transfer of realistic test scenarios including the entire environment into the virtual world with real-time capable models for the vehicle, road, driver and traffic is the core competency of the simulation solutions of the CarMaker product family, according to IPG Automotive. The new release has now opened up the possibility of using the products for parallel simulation on several processors or processor cores, the company adds.

High-performance computing (HPC) clusters as well as HPC Light now enable faster testing on high-performance PCs due to distributed computing. The release 7.0 makes it possible to use the open integration and test platform CarMaker on HPC clusters.

“There are two requirements for a simulation environment to enable parallelized testing of extensive scenarios – stability and a low additional effort involved in the parallelization. This requires a software architecture that accommodates the requirements and the setup of HPC clusters. The better these requirements are met, the greater the acceleration will be that can be achieved through parallelization,” says Andreas Höfer, product manager, Simulation Software at IPG Automotive.

Realistic and Automated

Real Driving Emissions Testing

The new RDX Test Generator for propulsion system development enables the automated generation of a multitude of realistic test cycles for the evaluation of real driving emissions (RDE) as well as energy and fuel consumption, and the use of these test cycles in virtual test driving. Taking adjustable driver behavior and traffic density into account, the test scenarios are generated and may be reproducibly used for propulsion system optimization.

With the new product variant CarMaker/TestBed, IPG Automotive caters specifically to users in the field of propulsion system development on dynamometers. “With CarMaker/TestBed, component test beds become system test beds that enable the efficient and seamless testing of the interplay between virtual and real prototypes on dynamometers. Possible fields of application can be summarized under the keywords RDE, virtual electrification, smart durability testing, attribute balancing and functional testing,” says Felix Pfister, business development manager, Powertrain at IPG Automotive.

Real-time Sensors Deliver Environment Data

The new Ultrasonic RSI and Radar RSI models complement the portfolio of sensor models of the CarMaker product family. The raw signal interfaces serve to model detailed physical effects and thus open up the possibility of developing sensor fusion algorithms in the virtual world, for instance.

New Look for Data Analysis

A new data source panel comprises a snapshot tool for a quick comparison of two test runs, for example, and the general option of displaying more than one source at a time. There is also a mouse-controlled zoom function and the possibility to automatically restore the last session.

Detailed Environment Generation

The Scenario Editor enables the fast and efficient generation of detailed traffic scenarios. Its latest additions include a new path and route concept, maneuver-based lane switching as well as a flexible placement of traffic on all lanes. Others are a streamlined route definition and dynamic traffic path planning.

For more info, visit IPG Automotive.

Sources: Press materials received from the company.