Testing Urban Interaction Scenarios Between Automated Vehicles and Vulnerable Road Users Using a Vehicle-in-The-Loop Test Bench and a Motion Laboratory

For testing and analyzing urban vehicle-pedestrian or vehicle-bicyclist interactions as realistically and safely as possible, new types of test environments are required. This paper presents and analyzes a test environment in which a Vehicle-in-the-Loop test bench is combined with a motion laboratory. In this test setup, a real automated vehicle can interact with a human pedestrian or cyclist in a virtual test field in the same way as in real road traffic. Employing a walking platform ensures that the pedestrian’s range of movement is not restricted during the test. This test environment is used to stimulate vehicle perception with a pedestrian avatar animated by a test subject. The test results are compared with measurements taken with a human pedestrian in reality, and strengths and weaknesses of the approach are discussed.