The instrumentation requirements in the area of automotive testing has increased many folds owing to the increasing and stringent demands imposed by several regulatory bodies such as the BIS, CMVR, EEC, etc. The type of tests to be carried out depends upon the purpose of evaluation such as for certification, design validation, etc. The parameters to be evaluated pertaining to the testing of vehicles are many. Presently, a number of dedicated instruments are being employed for the above purpose, each instrument meant to carry out evaluation of a specific parameter. However, one of the major disadvantages in such instruments is that their functionality is rigid and is difficult for reconfiguration. Also, it requires the adjustments of many hardware components to achieve the desired functional behaviour. It was, therefore intended to have an instrumentation system, which could be completely customised to the users requirements and at the same time be flexible enough to cater for the changing requirements of the test methodologies pertaining to the variation in the test standards.
Keeping in view the above requirements, an instrumentation system based on teh latest concept, of virtual instrumentation’ - ‘Vehicle Evaluation & Test System’ (VETS)’ is developed in VRDE. This system provides all the functionally as provided by the conventional instruments along with an added advantage of flexibility for further reconfiguration and customisation to suit to the user requirement.