Known Roads : real roads in simulated environments for the virtual testing of new vehicle systems

This publication presents a project aiming to develop virtual representations of real roads for use in driving simulators. The development was done in order to enable assessments of new systems on existing and well known roads in a driving simulator, and will increase the external validity of virtual testing. Furthermore, the usage of the virtual model of such roads makes the simulator results better comparable to earlier performed or later following road tests. The roads connecting Göteborg-Borås-Alingsås-Göteborg were selected. The purpose for this is due to their proximity to the vehicle industry in west Sweden and to the test tracks “Hällered” and “AstaZero”. However, the tools and methods developed can be used to build a virtual representation of any other road through a surrounding landscape and/or more urban environment. The project was carried out in steps, starting with data collection (investigation and assessment of available data from different sources as well as measurement of road properties) followed by data treatment (remove irrelevant data and errors, filtering, etc.), modelling (mathematical description of road properties) and simulation (selection of data formats for real time simulation)