Vehicle-In-The-Loop (VIL) and Scenario-In-The-Loop (SCIL) Automotive Simulation Concepts from the Perspectives of Traffic Simulation and Traffic Control

Abstract

As highly automated and autonomous vehicles (AVs) become more and more widespread, inducing the change of traffic dynamics, significant changes occur in traditional traffic control. So far, automotive testing has been done mostly in real-world or pure virtual simulation environment. However, this practice is quite obsolete as testing in real traffic conditions can be quite costly, moreover purely simulation based testing might be inadequate for specific goals. Accordingly, a hybrid concept of the Vehicle-inthe-Loop (ViL) was born recently, in accordance with the Hardware-in-the-Loop concept, i.e. in the ViL concept the vehicle is the 'hardware' within the simulation loop. Furthermore, due to the development of software capabilities, a novel approach, the Scenarioin-the-Loop (SciL) concept evolves based on the ViL approach. The paper defines the main purposes and conditions related to implementing ViL and SciL concepts from the perspective of traffic simulation and traffic control.