Type Approval of Autonomous Vehicles and Radar Sensors

The Task

Verifying the legal conformity of the vehicle or radar sensor behavior in defined and standardized test scenarios by test organizations and public authorities.

The Challenge

If type approval, also known as homologation, is passed, a vehicle or sensor is considered safe by a public authority. These vehicles or sensors then must perform according to public regulations and reflect public expectations. Therefore, the type approval procedure must tackle particularly critical challenges. Moreover, the procedure is intended to find general solutions applicable to all function variations from a variety of manufactures. As a rule, the solutions must follow the legal requirements. To cope with the challenges and fulfill all the requirements, the test tools in use have to be flexible but highly accurate.

The Solution

DARTS offer a user-friendly yet accurate over-the-air approach and thus provide the required flexibility to efficiently execute a test catalog that consists of defined test procedures. The preprogrammed tests, which accurately implement the legal requirements, can be performed easily. The test execution is facilitated by the fact that the easy-to-use, small-sized, stand-alone test device is simply placed in front of a radar sensor. DARTS can perfectly simulate echoes of objects in road traffic that match the properties of specified test objects in terms of size, velocity, reflection properties, etc. This enables test organizations to accurately test radar-based systems using defined scenarios. Therefore, DARTS are an essential necessity to efficiently assess system behavior, detection, and activation performance of autonomous and active safety systems to validate their legal conformity.