27 articles
Completed project: Passenger car interior design
The client was looking for an external company that could meet their detailed requirements and provide comprehensive support for the interior design of passenger cars. They were looking for a company that they could outsource all the work related to interior design and development from the design examination stage— including mounting, tolerance, fastening, and strength examinations—to consulting on lowering the cost and weight of parts, as well as providing support for meetings with complete vehicle manufacturers.
Proposal for remote data acquisition and instant analysis system including video
The client needed to install a system to remotely acquire various types of data from an engine and a vehicle while it was running in order to conduct running tests on public roads. They also wanted a system that could acquire not only video and audio but also GPS location information and control parameters of measurement devices all at once.
Development of electrical systems for mobile robots
The client was looking into developing a vehicle-type mobile robot (transport robot) with variable axles that could drive on uneven ground such as stairs and inclines. It was necessary to combine multiple motors, brakes, and clutches for a mechanism to run on rough ground, and implement a mechanism to dynamically control the robot using sensors.
Consulting for rear-seat control development using MATLAB®
The client was developing an in-vehicle Electronic Control Unit (ECU) for controlling all the rear seats of an automobile was considering the introduction of Model-Based Development (MBD) in order to reduce the number of prototypes and improve development efficiency. Therefore, we were requested to provide consulting services by leveraging our expertise in MATLAB® products and tools.
Simulation of the location of communication antennas to be installed in tunnels
The client was developing software to simulate the location of communication antennas to be installed in tunnels. In order to create the tunnel shape data to be input into the software, they were considering whether it would be possible to develop a program that uses MATLAB® to create a 3D display of the tunnel interior and a plot of the radio range. In addition, although development itself would be done in MATLAB®, they wanted the deliverable to be in the same C-based program as the software being developed.
Easy implementation of IoT and Edge-AI
The client was considering implementing IoT and Edge-AI for their products and equipment. Since they did not have sufficient experience in development, they were looking to accumulate development knowledge by developing a number of prototypes and trying out various methods, and so reached out to us.
Real Driving Emissions (RDE) testing service
The mandatory introduction of on-road emissions testing was announced in 2018. The introduction made it mandatory for new models of diesel cars to comply with the tests from October 1, 2022 onward and continuing production vehicles sequentially from October 1, 2024. Therefore, the client had to look into how to comply with the revised laws and regulations, including the installation of a Portable Emission Measurement System (PEMS) in their vehicles.
Circuit Board Development for Communication Robot Projects
The client was looking into the development of a communication robot (dialogue robot) that could interact with elderly dementia patients. They thought they would use a form of stuffed toy as the casing and integrate functions such as dialogue, facial expression recognition, and reactive expressions into it. In addition, the robot needed the ability to communicate with the server, since the device was for a demonstration test. The client searched for a company to who they could outsource the entire process from design to assembly, spanning three areas: the hardware, including the creation and assembly of the casing; the electronics, including circuit design and system configuration studies; and the controls, including control software development and UI app development.
LiDAR Development Project
The client looked into the possibility of implementing object recognition and autonomous mobile robots by remote sensing using Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR). They also wanted to develop communication between LiDAR modules and in-vehicle devices for a separate project, as well as mobility with autonomous driving technology and driver assistance systems.
Development of algorithms for recognizing lanes and surrounding vehicles using in-vehicle forward-facing cameras
The client wanted to develop an algorithm for recognizing lanes and surrounding vehicles in the direction of travel using an in-vehicle forward-facing camera they developed. They already had a recognition algorithm to implement, but one of their objectives was to add more functions and improve the detection accuracy of various recognition targets. As they were looking for a company that could provide them with a one-stop service, from consideration of recognition algorithms to evaluation, they reached out to us.
Development of battery temperature control system using MATLAB®
In order to outsource the development of the battery temperature control system, the client was looking for a company that had a lot of experience in developing with MATLAB®. Seeing our knowledge of Model-Based Development, including plant model creation and control model creation with MATLAB®, the client reached out to us.
Completed project: Passenger car exterior design
For the exterior design of a passenger car, the client was looking for a company that had a wealth of development experience and could offer a variety of design proposals including mounting, tolerance, fastening, and strength examinations. They also wanted the company to respond to their detailed requests for low-cost and lightweight exteriors, optimization of the design process by incorporating production requirements.
Verification work using plant models with MATLAB®
For the development of a new in-vehicle ECU, the client wanted to conduct verification tests in a simulated environment without using the actual device. Among the methods of Model-Based Development (MBD), they were interested in "plant models," which meant creating models of actual machines, and looked into whether it would be possible to create highly accurate plant models.
A completed development project of TFT vehicle dashboard display
In the course of the development of dashboard displays and heads-up displays, the client considered introducing new products using thin-film-transistor liquid-crystal displays (TFT LCD). As such, we received a request to take care of everything from organizing and reviewing the specifications of the dashboard displays to design and software development.
Completed project: "Survey into warnings against wheel separation accidents of heavy duty trucks"
As part of the "Campaign to prevent heavy duty truck wheel separation accidents" launched by the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism on November 1, 2020, we were commissioned to conduct a "survey into warnings against large vehicle wheel separation accidents." We planned and conducted verification experiments using dummies to quantitatively evaluate the impact of a tire detached from a vehicle colliding with a human body.
Example of cross-sectional inspection service
The client wanted to conduct a cross-sectional inspection of a sample to check internal conditions unobservable from the outside. This required a primary goal of being able to closely examine cracks in the solder and welded parts of electronic components, measure the coating thickness of paint parts, and measure the fused areas of metal parts for quality evaluations.
Development of the "Image Processing Basic Blockset," a Simulink block product for simple image processing
The client was considering building a proprietary image processing system of their own using MATLAB® and Simulink®. However, developing a system based on MATLAB® code would have required a lot of person-hours to develop the recognition algorithm, which is a prerequisite for image processing, so they looked into ways to make it simpler.
Commissioned development of prototypes of automotive battery pack
The client had decided to develop an in-vehicle battery pack and was looking for a company to who they could outsource design of battery pack housing, making of the cell module for the lithium-ion battery, and evaluation of some of the prototypes. The automotive battery pack they were developing was to be installed in a prototype vehicle.
FPGA evaluation proposal according to requests
In the past, the client had to recreate a similar module each time they started new in-vehicle system development, which cost a lot of time and money. So they reached out to us to develop a system with a field-programmable gate array (FPGA), expecting it to shorten the development process and increase development efficiency through modularization.
Proposal of benchmark tests (engine unit and actual vehicle)
To conduct benchmark tests on vehicles, the client was looking for a one-stop service that could handle everything from arranging test vehicles to testing. That service had to be able to conduct not only running tests on public roads, but also tests with chassis dynamometers, which have excellent reproducibility. In addition to testing on actual vehicles, they were also looking into the possibility of requesting comparative unit testing on engines.
Example of element removal service
The client was seeking a way to efficiently remove elements on the printed circuit boards they manufactured to analyze defects. They were also looking for a company that would be able to observe backsides of elements and board surfaces to enable observation of migration.
Automatic annotation service
The client was looking into the possibility of developing new functions such as Advanced Driver Assistance System (ADAS) by utilizing the large amount of the assets they own such as video data from drive recorders. They decided to create teacher data for machine learning to develop a driver assistance feature.
Creation and verification of transmission hydraulic control models and gear shift control models using MATLAB®
The client was considering the introduction of Model-Based Development (MBD) for a new development project of in-vehicle ECUs. Specifically, they were thinking of creating a hydraulic control model and a gear shift control model for the transmission and conducting tests in a simulated environment without using the machines themselves. They searched for a company that could not only create the control model, but also provide a one-stop service to create test scenarios and perform verification and evaluation using the models.
Proposal of EOL service
The number of EOL products had been increasing rapidly due to the reorganization of parts manufacturers and the trend toward production rationalization, causing the client to be unable to keep up. While they were considering how to handle EOL products, the deadline was approaching and if no measures were taken, they would have had to stop production. Considering the relationship of trust with their customers, the company came to the conclusion that they should quickly move to deal with the EOL products rather than discontinue production.
Development with robot control ROS 2 middleware
Due to the fact that the robotics middleware, Robot Operating System (ROS), has shifted to ROS 2, they sought to develop a product that uses ROS 2. However, generic devices did not yet support ROS 2, so they had to propose the in-house development of the system. Also, since they are in the transition period from ROS to ROS 2, we looked into robot control using ROS and ROS 2 together.
Proposal of testing service using a chassis dynamometer
By using a chassis dynamometer, it is possible to test vehicles under conditions similar to those of actual driving. A chassis dynamometer is a method of testing power performance, fuel efficiency, durability, and more by running automobiles such as passenger cars and trucks on rollers installed under the floor of a test chamber. Unlike tests on public roads, a range of conditions can be reproduced using chassis dynamometers, allowing for various measurements of HC, NOx, CO2, as well as comparisons of engine performance and more.
ADAS functional evaluations with highly accurate positioning and various tests
In developing Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS), the client had to conduct various tests such as Lane Keeping Assistance (LKA) and Lane Departure Warning (LDW). However, they did not have any knowledge of functional evaluation of ADAS in-house, so they sought a company that could support them in testing. In accordance with the prescribed testing method, they wanted to evaluate the starting position of the ADAS after obtaining the position information of the vehicle itself. In addition, they were required to conduct a functional evaluation in accordance with the New Car Assessment Programs (NCAPs) of multiple countries around the world and the Japan New Car Assessment Programme (JNCAP).