A toolchain definition to solve a vehicle routing problem for a time-efficient testing on a proving ground

Automotive technology needs thorough testing before a market launch is possible due to government regulations, which hinders a short time-to-market. In addition, testing has to be done at manually operated proving grounds (PG), which even further increases time-to-market. Therefore, a toolchain is proposed to convert OpenDrive and OpenScenario into applicable data for a Vehicle Routing Problem (VRP) for the vehicle under test (VUT). Thereby, three steps are required. In a first step, all persistent data is collected, like PG settings and test workflows. The data collected is used to build an undirected graph. The second step is to ensure that the graph complies with the customer’s request. In a third step, a VRP is formulated and a strategy for solving with single-solution based Metaheuristic methods is introduced. The toolchain does provide suitable data formats for a VRP formulation, which enables to plan optimal routes for the VUT. This is the beginning of closing a gap in the test automation and test concatenation for automotive technology.