Model Management at the Renault Virtual Simulation Team: State of Practice, Challenges, and Research Directions

In the automotive industry, new systems are being developed to enhance vehicle safety and driver convenience. These systems are increasingly complex to build and maintain. To develop these systems Renault makes intensive use of simulation and must deal with thousands of models. This huge number of models must be well managed. To manage these models, Renault has developed the SysML-based Model Identity Card (MIC), used with a Model-Based Simulation (MBSi) approach. However, despite this first solution, managing simulation models remains a difficult task. In this paper, we describe the current simulation model management approaches used at Renault, and their shortcomings and challenges in the modelling and simulation of complex automotive systems. We use Advanced Driver Assistance System (ADAS) and its Automatic Emergency Breaking (AEB) sub-system as examples to illustrate the utilization of the MIC and demonstrate current practices. From these examples, we derive main challenges faced by the virtual simulation team and propose research directions to solve them, based on state of the art methodologies for simulation models’ validation and verification management.