On-the-fly And In-vehicle Testing

Hello my dearest readers. I am over the moon! Let me start this blog post with a big: THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR YOUR SUPPORT. The last couple of weeks have been great! But now, let's talk about in-vehicle testing. And while we're at it, I will also try to add a little "on the fly" into this blog post. Sound good? Let's go!

Basically, the job is only done once the designed control algorithms perform as expected in the machine (therefore, we're applying the Rapid Control Prototyping workflow!). If you google on-the-fly testing, you can find a Microsoft definition of the term, which freely cited states the following: it's a technique in which test derivations from a model and the execution of them are combined into one algorithm. This algorithm then is deployed onto a real-time target machine. The machine then is connected to the real system (last time the example was a forklift, this time I will talk about a car).

Don't blind me with your high beam!

Let me tell you why it's important that engineers were working on an innovative LED headlamp projection technology which can change it's illumination dynamically: I can't stand other drivers blinding me with their high beam!

This is how they achieved it: They started with placing a high number of LEDs in a well-thought after geometrical order. Furthermore, this new technology can control each single LED individually. Before I go into the testing phase of this project, I'd like for you to watch the following video in order to see for yourself, why new cars should definitively have this type of headlamp:

Why Knowing C Code Doesn't Always Help

If you want to develop "on the fly", what you definitively can't have is programming all of it in C code, only to have the program debugged and re-written over and over again. Since they also chose to take the model-based design route, the engineers required a flexible prototyping development platform, on which they could easily adapt, test, and tune new control designs. After having the control design ready for testing, they deployed their algorithms onto a real-time target machine as a standalone application. To get to the best possible version of their LED headlamp projection technology, they drove around (at night) in a test vehicle (which is in-vehicle testing).

Hope you enjoyed the ride! Next time I will look at communication protocols. Quite frankly, we need those or else nothing would work. Stay curious!

• If you want to know more about the company working for great lighting systems, here you go!

• Since I am not a programming crack, the best source I can give you without having to investigate C code more intensively... here you go (and sorry!).