vehicle engineering
The push for greater efficiencies, reduced emissions, and new electrified
technologies is greater than ever. OEM’s are faced with the challenges of
managing the increased technological complexity of these demands, delivering
solutions that tick all the boxes, while also creating vehicles with characteristics
that are attractive to end consumers. At AVL, while we manage
complexity and ensure that legislative targets around CO2, emissions, efficiency,
range and additional marketing goals are met, it is the expectations
of the driver that we put at the center of our development efforts.
Traditional vehicle development begins with an OEM’s product vision.
In this early phase the mostly marketing and positioning goals of the new
OEMs vehicle are defined on a high level. This might include the customer
market profile, the vehicle’s top targets, such as space, style or driving
characteristics, to name just a few. Based on this vision and the high level
goals, multiple physical prototypes are built over the following months –
a process that is expensive and time consuming.
These prototypes are built to explore different technologies and their impact
and benefits for target fulfillment, such as vehicle range, acceleration performance,
handling, comfort feel and driveability. Do these prototypes prove the
feasibility of the initial vision? Can the targets be met with reasonable costs?
The obvious drawbacks of this process are that it is extremely costly, and
evaluating the cross-influences of different technologies using parallel
prototypes
is incredibly difficult. Additionally, trade-offs result in goals
not being met, the distinctive vehicle DNA being less identifiable, and the
placement of the product suffers. Ultimately, this is a cumbersome process
that serves the concept rather than the needs of the driver.
AVL Virtual Vehicle Development breaks from this traditional approach,
adopting a different methodology. Using benchmarking and virtual prototypes
in early development phases – before any hardware is available – gives
decision makers at OEMs the ability to identify the right steps required to
meet targets and assess which cross-influences of technologies can further
their goals.
“At AVL the first thing we do is conduct benchmarking activities to gain
a comprehensive overview of the competitor landscape, of best-in-class
standards for driving attributes and efficiency, and to translate the marketing
vision into technical requirements by providing objective targets,”
explains Mario Oswald, Skill Team Leader at AVL. “Later on, by using
virtual prototypes, we can evaluate which technology and components are
needed to meet these goals.”
D E C EMB E R 2 0 1 8 1 1
AVL’s processes and tools enable OEMs to experience
the feel of a car before it is even built.