National Instruments technical innovation award goes to ADAS iiT

The four partner companies in the ADAS iiT Consortium have pooled their expertise to create a one-stop solution for simulating and validating Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) for autonomously operated vehicles. 

On National Instruments (NI) Alliance Partner Day in Fürstenfeldbruck, a town outside Munich, NI has honoured the ADAS iiT Consortium with its 2018 Technical Innovation Award.

In so doing, NI has recognised the innovative approach taken by the consortium, founded in 2017, in pooling their expertise to offer their customers a synchronised one-stop testing solution for the simulation and validation of autonomously operated vehicles in a virtual environment. The test solutions that were developed are based on the standardised platforms of National Instruments.

NI’s Technical Innovation Award has been awarded since 2013. It honours partner companies that, in their role as early adopters, have deployed new NI technologies early on and have thereby particularly distinguished themselves in promoting innovation.

Consortium offers innovative test solution for driver assistance systems
'ADAS iiT - Innovation in Test' is an amalgamation of four NI partner companies (Konrad Technologies GmbH, SET GmbH, S.E.A. Data Technolgy GmbH und measX GmbH & Co. KG) formed with the goal of making autonomous driving even safer.

By cooperating, the partners have pursued a strategy to develop test solutions for Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) in autonomously driven vehicles and in doing so, have pooled their skills and their many years of experience in the areas of sensor and radar simulation (Konrad), Hardware-in-the-Loop (SET), V2X communication, GNSS simulation (S.E.A.) and data management (measX).

“Autonomous driving is one of the most discussed subjects of our day. The development of Advanced Driver Assistance Systems is moving forward rapidly - but until now, the testing procedures for it were always very expensive,” emphasised Michael Konrad, Managing Director of Konrad Technologies. “That is precisely where ADAS iiT comes in, It offers the customer an integrated test solution based on the NI platform under real life conditions - that is something that is unique in the marketplace.”

Speeding up development programs for autonomous vehicles
ADAS iiT offers virtual test drives to check modern sensors and Sensor Fusion Electronic Control Units (ECU) and delivers turnkey-ready, flexible ADAS end-to-end solutions from a single provider - starting with system architecture and continuing through development, implementation, and validation, all the way to production. Such pooling of skills results in a one-stop offering that portrays real life test conditions in the laboratory and thus offers the customer great technical, financial and time-related added value.

Frank Heidemann, Managing Director of SET, puts it this way: “Our innovative approach makes efficient testing of the systems possible in less time and at significantly lower cost. The reliability of the test increases at the same time which helps make it possible to bring autonomous vehicles to the market more safely and quickly than had been expected. That is a big added value for our customers.”

Customer needs recognized and worked out jointly in the consortium
Ingo Schumacher, Systems Engineering Manager CER at National Instruments highlights in particular the focus on customer value: “The consortium has correctly recognized customers’ needs and together developed an integrated test solution that offers the automobile industry a significantly more robust and more effective architecture while shortening and streamlining the development times for automobile manufacturers. Such a targeted collaboration by the NI partner companies is absolutely exemplary.”

ADAS iiT has already introduced its approach at many big events, including NI-Week in Austin, Texas and the Automotive Testing Expos in Stuttgart and Shanghai. Dr. Gerd Schmitz, Managing Director of S.E.A. Data Technology GmbH has received exclusively positive feedback there: “The customers are impressed by the fact that we are simplifying the complex testing procedures for driver assistance systems and are showing them a cost effective and time-saving new way that is tailored to their needs.”

The Managing Director of measX GmbH & Co. KG, Dr. Joachim Hilsmann elaborated: “We will also be attending international trade fairs and NI events in 2018 and offering customers person-to-person insights into the integrated test solutions of the future.”