An Approach to Modeling and Developing Virtual Sensors Used in the Simulation of Autonomous Vehicles

A virtual model enables the study of reality in a virtual environment using a theoretical model, which is a digital image of a real model. The complexity of the virtual model must correspond to the reality of the evaluated system, becoming as complex as necessary and nevertheless as simple as possible, allowing for computer simulation results to be validated by experimental measurements. The virtual model of the autonomous vehicle was created using the CarMaker software package version 12.0, which was developed by the IPG Automotive company and is extensively used in both the international academic community and the automotive industry. The virtual model simulates the real-time operation of a vehicle's elementary systems at the system level and provides an open platform for the development of virtual test scenarios in the application areas of autonomous vehicles, ADAS, Powertrain, and vehicle dynamics. This model included the following virtual sensors: slip angle sensor, inertial sensor, object sensor, free space sensor, traffic sign sensor, line sensor, road sensor, object-by-line sensor, camera sensor, global navigation sensor, radar sensor, lidar sensor, and ultrasonic sensor. Virtual sensors can be classified based on how they generate responses: sensors that operate on parameters derived from measurement characteristics, sensors that operate on developed modeling methods, and sensors that operate on applications.