FEATURE TEST & MEASUREMENT
REDUCING ELECTRIC VEHICLE TEST DEVELOPMENT TIMES
Subaru is using a hardware-in-the-loop system from National Instruments to simulate road conditions, reducing electric vehicle test development times by 90 per cent
M
ajor automotive manufacturers like Subaru are using hardware-in-the-
loop (HIL) technology from National Instruments (NI) to simulate actual road conditions for electric vehicle testing, eliminating environmental factors to reduce test time and costs. Traditionally, engineers have conducted vehicle tests using finished cars on test courses or public roads to check the vehicle’s performance and safety response. However, certain limitations, such as weather and fluctuating road surface conditions, can make it difficult to conduct reproducible tests on roads in a timely manner. Moreover, electric vehicles are extremely complex due to their many subsystems, which are all interdependent on each other. This complexity makes the job challenging for automotive test engineers with short development cycles and pressure to limit costs. To combat these issues, Subaru replaced the roads in the validation tests with a NI
implement a customised HIL system in just one to two weeks and develop our software in-house,” says Daisuke Umiguchi, Electrified Power Unit Research and Experiment Dept., Subaru Corporation. “This helped us keep product purchasing costs to around one-third of the cost of adopting solutions from other companies, and, because of our familiarity with LabVIEW, keep our software development costs to around one-sixth of the cost of commissioning an outside developer.” Subaru further outfitted its vehicle
HIL simulation solution built on NI PXI products and LabVIEW software. With the HIL system, Subaru can eliminate environmental factors and thoroughly and efficiently test a vehicle’s embedded controller in a virtual environment before running real-world diagnostics on the complete system. “By using NI PXI products and
LabVIEW, we were able to completely
DATACOM DEVICE PRODUCTION TESTING
Yokogawa Test & Measurement has released a cost-effective instrument optimised for testing telecom devices during and after production. The new AQ6360 is a benchtop optical spectrum analyser targeted mainly
at the production testing of datacom and telecom devices such as laser diodes, optical transceivers and optical amplifiers. It offers a sweep speed twice that of other OSA models designed for R&D purposes, thus improving production throughput, and features the convenient free-space optical input which supports both single-mode and multimode fibre testing. “In production testing, it is factors such as the speed of measurement,
robust design and lower capital cost that make a test instrument appealing to customers,” says Terry Marrinan, vice-president Sales & Marketing, Yokogawa Europe & South-East Asia. “With the AQ6360, we have produced an instrument that will satisfy the requirement of cost- effectiveness requested by our customer base working for mass production companies without compromising on the quality and reliability for which our instruments are renowned.” Key performance features include a wavelength range from 1,200 to
1,650nm, a selectable wavelength resolution from 0.1 to 2nm, a high wavelength accuracy of ±0.02nm, a high dynamic range of 55dB, and a wide measurement range from +20 to -80dBm. The wavelength resolution and accuracy are maintained over the whole wavelength range. The AQ6360 has sufficient optical performance to perform accurate measurements on the
Subaru plans to use the test system as a final quality check and eventually expand its use for all car types
test solution with a controller-driven dynamometer by HORIBA and CarSim vehicle dynamics simulation software deployed by Virtual Mechanics. Together, they produce load conditions equivalent to those generated on actual roads. This driving system transmits the calculated values to the NI HIL system in real time to create closed-loop control between the models on the HIL system and the driving system. As a result, the HIL interaction system can apply the appropriate load to the vehicle throughout the tests. Subaru plans to use this test system at the final stages of development for electric vehicles as a final quality check, and eventually expand its use for all car types. By adopting this system, Subaru anticipates reducing labour hours by half compared to conventional methods.
NI
ni.com
side-mode suppression ratio (SMSR): a key parameter of laser testing on a production line. The instrument can also be used in conjunction with bit error rate test (BERT) equipment to measure the centre wavelength and spectral width of transceivers and laser diode modules. The AQ6360 incorporates a new type of monochromator with a
simpler design and which is lighter in weight than that fitted to earlier Yokogawa models. As a result, it is more robust and does not require re-alignment if the instrument is moved. With compact housing, the AQ6360 is ideally suited to use in space-constrained production environments. The high resolution, responsive 8.4-inch multi-touch capacitive touchscreen makes the operation of the instrument simple and intuitive. Different from other OSAs having a fibre-coupled input, the AQ6360,
thanks to its free-space optical input structure, accepts a multimode optical fibre without being affected by high insertion loss which results from the mismatch between multimode and single-mode fibres. Therefore a free-space laser beam from wafer, chip, or device package can efficiently be captured using a multimode fibre, resulting in further improvements in measurement throughput. The AQ6360 is ready for remote operation, being equipped as
standard with Ethernet and GPIB interfaces for remote access and for building automated test systems.
Yokogawa Test & Measurement
tmi.yokogawa.com
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APRIL 2018 | INSTRUMENTATION
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