Millbrook uses nCode GlyphWorks to deliver unrivalled vehicle test service

millbrook, UK

Introduction

Testing plays a critical role in the development of new vehicles, but it’s also a time-intensive and challenging process. To enhance testing efficiency while maintaining high-quality results, Millbrook is continually exploring innovative strategies. In collaboration with HBK, Millbrook leverages GlyphWorks to automate complex calculations, such as the use of GPS Processing to derive vehicle data from low sample rate GPS signals.

chevron_left

Challenge
Solution
Result
Client Description

chevron_right

Development of testing ground’s capabilities

Testing is an extremely important yet time-consuming and demanding task in the development of new vehicles. Test centers like Millbrook are continuously investigating new strategies and approaches that improve the quality of results delivered to the customer while reducing program costs and timescales. “We are constantly developing new approaches and creating a forward thinking ethos in testing,” said Chris Polmear, Millbrook’s Senior Engineer, Vehicle Measurement Group. As part of their research, Millbrook engineers attended a free seminar on Large-scale Customer Vehicle Usage Monitoring hosted by HBK. The seminar included a number of presentations on how vehicle testing could be improved, such as “Vehicle Usage Profiling and Proving Ground Optimisation” and “Bringing the Proving Ground into the Laboratory and on to the Desktop” by Dr. Andrew Halfpenny, Chief Technologist of nCode products. Demonstrations shown at this seminar ultimately led Millbrook to select nCode GlyphWorks to support the development of new testing approaches for determining brake usage and braking energy.

Solution Requirements:

Improve the quality of results delivered to the customer
Reduce program costs and time scales
Extend services of vehicle test center

Millbrook has a comprehensive array of surfaces, including an area comprising sinusoidal and random waveforms with coarse blacktop, “cats eyes” and other eye-watering, suspension-jarring features.

Proving ground correlation

Chris Game, Millbrook’s Principal Engineer for Special Projects, comments, “GlyphWorks provides us with an intuitive platform for enhancing our process for correlating for events”. Millbrook engineers use built-in functions provided in GlyphWorks to easily calculate time history plots for many of the required vehicle parameters such as effective engine power, braking power and tractive power. Specifically, the GPS Processing glyph is used to automate the calculation of these vehicle quantities from low sample rate GPS signals. By calculating these parameters, engineers can gain insight into the performance and power requirements of a vehicle by simply analysing GPS and basic CAN bus data instead of using additional instrumentation.

Featuring:

nCode GlyphWorks

GPS Processing
Optimized Testing

The GPS Processing glyph enables Millbrook to gain insight into the performance and power requirements of a vehicle by simply analyzing GPS and basic CAN bus data.

nCode GlyphWorks is used to optimize the most appropriate test track surfaces to represent the desired target - quantifying engineering decisions, and saving time and money

Exceeding customer’s expectations

Millbrook has extended the use of nCode GlyphWorks for a number of other measurement and analysis tasks on the testing ground. One application is the development and sizing of regenerative braking and energy recovery systems by using GPS data analysis. Proving ground correlation is another application which combines brake testing with the estimation of the energy of each braking event to optimize the usage of the proving ground. This capability, called Optimized Testing in GlyphWorks, is used by Millbrook to assess the distribution of braking energy events across all of the test track surfaces and optimize a duty cycle to match the required real world usage. Millbrook now incorporates Optimized Testing into vehicle development projects, enabling customers to reduce the need for public road driving tests.

About Millbrook

Millbrook in Bedfordshire, UK, is an independent, world leading engineering test and development facility that provides confidential, proven test results for applications in a variety of sectors, from automotive and public transport, right through to testing front line military vehicles to the highest standards.

Facilities for vehicle testing at Millbrook include unique test tracks, such as a demanding circuit that features a 3.2km (2 mile) banked high-speed circuit, which is used regularly for tests over 240 kph (150 mph). There is also a purpose built hill route with a range of extended gradients of 7, 11, 14, 17, 21 and 26 percent. Millbrook has a comprehensive array of surfaces, including an area comprising sinusoidal and random waveforms with coarse blacktop, “cats eyes” and other eye-watering, suspension-jarring features.

Technology Used

No more result to load

Related Case Studies

No more result to load

Modern Slavery Statement Imprint Cookie Policy Privacy Policy Sitemap Ethical Business