An Integrated Process for Moving Testing from the Track to the Laboratory

There is a growing emphasis on the transfer of testing from the proving ground to the laboratory. The rapid evolution of test technology has been a key to making such transfers possible. This paper presents a description of the methods, including the critical data acquisition and the control parameter generation processes, developed to efficiently perform the move from the proving ground to the laboratory. Software tools are described that permit the user to collect vehicle control and response inputs on the road and convert these to test system control parameters. The process of collecting data is shown to be straight forward with a great deal of flexibility in terms of the type and number of channels to be collected. The conversion of these data to control parameters is described with examples. Parameters included in these studies include speeds, loads, vehicle inclination, accelerations, temperatures, torques, pedal positions, pedal force, time and distance. The software support to fine tune control parameters and to adjust to test system capabilities is also documented. Through examples, the capabilities and accuracy of vehicle simulations developed from this process are illustrated. A vehicle test process requiring several hours covering a wide range of operator inputs and changing conditions is shown to be accurately simulated. The accuracy in simulating vehicle operational conditions and measured parameters are quite high, typically within 2%.