This project supports the acquisition of a Real Time Lab system for automatic simulation and verification testing, including a large-scale hardware-in-the-loop (HiL) simulation facility for Connected Autonomous Vehicles (CAVs). The framework enables reasoning and test development in simulation, an abstraction process to virtualize real-world crashes, and a co-simulation capability for concurrent design and test. While rapid progress is being made in the underlying engines for CAVs, this progress will not be useful without a significant advance in methods to show robustness and safety of these systems.
The effort opens opportunities to replicate and simulate real-world scenarios and offers the framework for the Advanced Mobility Institute (AMI) to provide industry and regulators with a technical language to communicate safety and verification issues. Moreover, other applications can benefit from the outcomes (e.g., marine, logistics, agriculture), thus enabling future partnerships. The facility also offers a unique opportunity for students to gain hands-on experience and attract industrial partners to test their systems. The institution encourages neighboring universities to use their facilities on research challenges related to CAVs. Finally, the integrated instrument enriches the existing curriculum with a simulation facility that supports HiL and has real-time (RT) simulation capacity.
This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
