K-City gears up with AB Dynamics equipment

We're pleased to announce that we have been selected to supply driving robots, drive-by-wire controllers and a Guided Soft Target (GST) for a major new proving ground in Korea. K-City is being built by the Korea Automobile Test and Research Institute (KATRI) and will be one of the world's largest facilities for testing and developing self-driving cars.

The new driving robots and GST for K-City have been specified with a raft of AB Dynamics' proprietary technology onboard to allow for precise and synchronised motion of multiple vehicles and ADAS targets. Path-following software, TrackFi Pro wireless telemetry and Synchro vehicle-to-vehicle synchronisation control are key elements of AB Dynamics' offering for ADAS testing and intelligent vehicle development.

The K-City order also includes two of AB Dynamics' new Flex-0 drive-by-wire controllers. The Flex-0 replaces the existing CAN-Omni product and allows by-wire control of compatible vehicles, via the same Robot Controller software interface as if they were using conventional driving robots.

Jeremy Ash, commercial manager at AB Dynamics, notes that “what makes our offering so appealing to customers is the fact that our ADAS targets and by-wire controllers are built upon the two decades of development behind our driving robots; they use the same software and they are all natively compatible. This type of testing with multiple vehicles can be very complex, and only AB Dynamics can guarantee total in-built compatibility across driving robots, by-wire control and ADAS targets. The holistic approach even extends beyond our track-testing products – we're also ensuring that lab test equipment such as our new Advanced Vehicle Driving Simulator (aVDS) will work seamlessly together with our other products, allowing customers to reproduce the same ADAS scenarios on the track and in simulation.”

K-City is scheduled to open in 2018. The video above shows some of the planned facilities.