A complete framework for developing and testing automated driving controllers

Intelligent vehicles have improved their highly and fully automated driving capacities in the last years. Most of the developments are driven by the fast evolution of embedded systems for the acquisition, perception and communication modules. However, the fast growing of the automated vehicle market demands modern tools for validation, integration and testing of these new embedded functionalities, specially related to Advanced Driving Assistance Systems (ADAS). In this paper, a testing methodology for validation of path planning and control algorithms for current and future automated vehicles is presented. A high degree of modularity and adaptability have been considered in the design of the proposed method. It is based on a software tool for vehicle modeling, called Dynacar, which allows a good trajectory definition, cooperative maneuvers interaction and virtual validation. Different types of vehicles, scenarios (i.e.: urban, interurban, highways under different environmental conditions) and controllers can be tested. Moreover, Hardware-In-the-Loop configuration (i.e. electronic control units) can be also tested. Simulation results show a good performance in the implementation and configuration of urban scenarios, using different controllers in the proposed framework.