Synchronised Video and GPS in ADAS testing

One car maker finds out if VBOX is as accurate as claimed for NHTSA tests

Active safety systems are now common in new cars, as manufacturers seek to differentiate themselves from the competition and satisfy consumer demand for safer motoring. Sophisticated ADAS (Advanced Driver Assistance Systems) such as collision avoidance and lane departure warning need to be extremely accurate to conform to regulations - so engineers must be able to rely on the accuracy of the systems used to test their performance.

After purchasing a VBOX ADAS testing system, one of the worlds’ largest car manufactures recently decided to prove to themselves that it satisfies the NHTSA accuracy requirements before rolling it out in their new vehicle development.

The manufacturer requested that NHTSA’s approved testing centre, the TRC (Transport Research Centre) in Ohio conduct full FCWS (Forward Collision Warning System) and LDWS (Lane Departure Warning System) confirmation tests with their existing equipment. The Racelogic equipment was fitted at the same time for comparison. So what happened? Let’s start with the installation.

TRC’s test equipment consisted of an RTK GPS and inertial unit for measurement, which fed into a separate logging computer system. The ‘collision point’ for the car was then mapped together with the front left and right corners using a ‘FARO’ laser line probe. The installation took two full days. A video system (as required by NHTSA for the Lane Departure Warning tests) was also fitted. However it was not synchronised with the other data and video pixels had to be counted with reference to a ruler to establish the visual lane departure warning performance.

In contrast, the VBOX ADAS system took a few hours to install. With the GPS and GLONASS measurement and data logging combined in one device, the equipment included a VBOX 3i data logger, InertialMeasurement Unit (IMU), BaseStation, radio modules, and a Video VBOX.

Read the full article and see how our ADAS system performed here >