Virtual bus simulation means that the complete system of ECUs and bus components is simulated. As no hardware is needed, function developers can test the overall system very early in the development process. This drastically reduces costs and time for the test setup.

Additionally, virtual validation makes it possible to run simulations even faster than in real-time. The network participants are virtual ECUs (V-ECUs), which can be generated for each new function iteration at the click of a button. Since V-ECUs are independent of any hardware, it is easy to make them available for a large group of testers. The simulation platform for virtual ECUs – dSPACE VEOS – runs on a usual PC, providing function developers with their own test system whenever they need it. During virtual bus simulation, the work environment is similar to that of other bus simulation scenarios with dSPACE tools. The V-ECUs are generated in SystemDesk and simulated in VEOS.

dSPACE ControlDesk provides the graphical signal representation for monitoring and analyzing the simulation. Layouts that are created for the virtual bus simulation can be reused later on during bus simulation with a hardware-in-the-loop simulation, thus saving time again.