Spirent GNSS Simulators and dSPACE Platform Integrate for Faster, Precise Connected Autonomous Vehicle Development

Spirent Communications plc, a leader in global navigation satellite systems (GNSS) testing solutions, recently announced its solutions now integrate with vehicle testing systems from dSPACE, a producer of engineering tools for developing and testing mechatronic control systems.
The integration enables vehicle developers and suppliers to use Spirent’s GNSS simulators and software with the dSPACE SCALEXIO hardware platform and Automotive Simulation Models, resulting in reduced time and improved accuracy in the testing of new connected and autonomous vehicles (CAVs).
“Driverless cars need to be thoroughly and precisely tested within the most realistic virtual environments available. Giving developers that use dSPACE platforms access to Spirent’s highly accurate, very low latency RF simulators will help to reduce development times and increase confidence within the system before proving ground testing and as part of a continuous integration platform.” said Colin Ford, Technical Innovation Engineer for Spirent Positioning Technology. “Spirent and dSPACE are leaders in their own areas, so this integration will allow developers to benefit from the combination of two best-in-class solutions.”
Widely used in hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) test systems for CAV, dSPACE SCALEXIO is a real-time platform to run vehicle models, such as dSPACE ASM VehicleDynamics. These specific simulation tools provide the real-time motion and dynamics (and often sensor outputs) relevant to the vehicle under test.
Spirent has developed a real-time, low latency custom interface module that runs directly on the dSPACE SCALEXIO platform, takes the output data (such as trajectory) from the vehicle model and converts that to the Spirent PosApp format for transmission to a Spirent GSS7000 or GSS9000 GNSS simulator to generate GPS or other GNSS signals that are tightly synchronized with the simulated vehicle trajectory. For even greater realism, Spirent’s Sim3D software for automatic obscuration and multipath simulation of satellite signals can be also be integrated by sharing 3D models between the vehicle simulation environment software and Sim3D.