Frontloading in powertrain development involving hybrid (virtual and real) development environments

Abstract

In order to reduce the powertrain development time in the context of increasing system complexity, hardware-related development steps are being shifted to early phases using virtual development environments (frontloading) and agile working methods are being introduced. However, implementation in industrial practice is often insufficient. The application of virtual development environments is often not well accepted, especially since accurate, validated simulation models are not available until late in the development process and the competences/expertise of experts in the development environments of different degrees of virtualisation are often insufficiently brought in jointly and in an agile approach during their development. This is where the publication steps in, introducing a development approach for the agile development, application and further development of validated simulation models and presenting its application and added value on the basis of two practice-relevant case studies (powertrain design, development of torque coordination). It is shown that how real and virtual development environments can be applied in an interconnected way so that frontloading in the real development process succeeds in an agile way. The resulting outcomes are discussed and summarised.