WHITE PAPER
Reducing the time and cost of drive testing
How a major automotive manufacturer is compressing time to market by replaying real-world CAN and GNSS signals in the lab.

Because of the need for testing, the automotive industry regards extensive live test driving as a cornerstone of good practice. There is a powerful reassurance in putting a real car on a real road and experiencing its performance.
A key part of drive testing is to ensure that the GPS positioning system is working accurately, and with more functions in vehicles now using that data, it is more important to have better performance.
This white paper shares learning points from a real, three-month collaboration between the engineering team at Spirent, DG Technologies, and test engineers at one of the world’s leading automotive manufacturers. The project sought to determine how ‘record and replay’ could complement drive testing.
The paper covers:
Real world examples – and outcomes – from one of the world’s leading automotive OEMs
Strengths and weaknesses of traditional drive testing regimes
The impact of supplementing drive testing with replayed signals in the lab
The necessity – and difficulty – of recording CAN signals alongside RF
The technical solution and its impact on the OEM