NAFEMS Americas and Digital Engineering (DE) teamed up (once again) to present CAASE, the (now Virtual) Conference on Advancing Analysis & Simulation in Engineering, on June 16-18, 2020!

CAASE20 brought together the leading visionaries, developers, and practitioners of CAE-related technologies in an open forum, unlike any other, to share experiences, discuss relevant trends, discover common themes, and explore future issues, including:
-What is the future for engineering analysis and simulation?
-Where will it lead us in the next decade?
-How can designers and engineers realize its full potential?
What are the business, technological, and human enablers that will take past successful developments to new levels in the next ten years?

Resource Abstract

The Indianapolis Motor Speedway (IMS) and Energy Systems Network (ESN)

are conducting the Indy Autonomous Challenge which is a two-year $1 million

prize autonomous vehicles (AV) competition that will culminate in a head-tohead, high-speed autonomous vehicle race Oct. 23, 2021 around the

Speedway's famed 2.5-mile oval. The Challenge builds upon the success and

impact of the DARPA Grand Challenge – the 2004-05 defense research initiative

that helped create the modern autonomous vehicle industry.

Since simulation is crucial to the development of autonomous vehicles, a

simulation race will be conducted in February 2021 prior to the speedway race.

The simulation race will be held on a virtual model of the Indianapolis Motor

Speedway. Each race team will pilot a virtual car around the virtual racetrack,

with the autonomous driving software developed by their team, in a head-tohead race with several competing cars running in the simulation simultaneously.

This presentation will discuss details of simulation as used in the development of

autonomous vehicles, considering the autonomous vehicles to be used in the

Indy Autonomous Challenge as a case study.

The purpose of AV simulation is to serve as a virtual proving ground for testing,

refining and validating the vehicle’s automated driving software algorithms.

Toward this purpose, the first step in AV simulation is to construct a virtual world

model in which the test autonomous vehicle – referred to as ego vehicle – will be

virtually driven by the automated driving software. In this case the virtual world is

a model of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. We will discuss the intricacies of

developing such a model highlighting modeling considerations that are important

in AV simulation such as road topology. The second step is constructing a virtual

model of the autonomous vehicle to be driven in the virtual world. In the case of

the Indy Autonomous Challenge, the race vehicles will be based on the Indy

Lights chassis developed by Dallara. Considerations for a creating a virtual

model of such a vehicle that accurately represents the physical behavior of the

vehicle will be discussed. Of particular importance is developing a vehicle

dynamics model and a powertrain model. The next step is modeling sensors

mounted on the vehicle. Various techniques of sensor modeling will be

discussed. Next, the approach used to interface the automated driving software

with the simulator will be discussed. Finally, we will discuss running simulations

in the cloud at massive scale to test and validate the automated driving software

over vast design spaces.