Transition to Digital Twin for Automotive Sensor Interfaces Test Equipment

This paper describes an alternative approach for the implementation of a test system for testing the automotive sensor interfaces used in Electronic Control Units (ECU). In the automotive industry, the development and testing of electronic modules are largely obeying the standard ISO26262-5, which provides methodologies and addresses the specific safety aspects. The development methodology considers multiple aspects – starting from the general requirements of the final product (the ECU), going through system architecture, hardware, software, and mechanical design, and eventually the verification and validation of the product. Everything is covered under the V-model design concept. The standard did not specify which kind of test equipment should be used, it focuses on the necessity of verification and validation of the final product. Testing activity can be merged into the methodology and modeled by creating a digital twin of the test equipment, whose parameters (inputs and outputs) are part of the bigger development model of the ECU. This paper proposes an improved and combined development and test methodology, focused on the hardware development of automotive sensor interfaces. In the case of sensor interfaces of ECUs, the sensors are external components of the system, and requirements refer to sensor interface features and functionality. Therefore, the test equipment can emulate the real sensors, with additional features allowing testing of all development requirements.