The mobility sector is driven by various challenges nowadays – on the one hand mechanical structures do need to be lightweight whilst being highly durable at the same time. On the other hand, autonomous and adaptive features are integrated within the vehicles themselves. A major challenge arises in increasing the speed of the development process within early stage design, i.e. critical functions have to be evaluated taking into account their interaction within the system context.

High performance real-time simulation capabilities play a key role for the acceleration of the development process. The presentation highlights the application of real-time simulation for reinforcement learning of an adaptive control algorithm for an active suspension system and the integration of numerical simulation models in physical mechanical testing. In the latter case, Fraunhofer LBF has developed a mechanical hardware-in-the-loop interface allowing for the direct mechanical interaction of the physical device under test with a numerical representation of the rest of the system.