Automotive Engineering - June 2024 - 4

EDITORIAL
EDITORIAL
Sebastian Blanco
Editor-in-Chief
sebastian.blanco@saemediagroup.com
Chris Clonts
Senior Editor
chris.clonts@saemediagroup.com
It's not nothing, man.
Mathematicians, hold your ire. There's a
hidden message in this issue that
there's no difference between zero and
infinity. Let me explain.
In mid-May, I attended VI-Grade's
Zero Prototype Summit (ZPS). As the
name suggests, the company - like so
many others working in the test simulation
space - is trying to provide OEMs
and suppliers with the tools to reduce
the number of physical prototypes that
have to be developed and built before
those vehicles or components reach
production-ready status. We haven't
yet entered the zero-prototype automotive
world, but we're getting closer.
You can find detailed ZPS coverage
starting on page 22.
What I wanted to address
here is something
that didn't make the feature
article, something a
bit more theoretical. One
of the companies sponsoring
ZPS was HBK, and I
spoke with COO Ben
Bryson about how HBK is
supporting a zero-prototype
future. He saw all this
talk about zero prototypes from a slightly
different - and interesting - angle.
" I actually prefer the quote, 'infinite
of the way to what an engineering
team might want before building that
first physical development mule, and
that's the way we get closer to zero
prototypes.
But Bryson's point is that the idea of
" I actually
prefer the
quote, 'infinite
prototypes.' "
-HBK COO
Ben Bryson
prototypes,' " he told me. " The principle
being that, ultimately, in a digital
world, you are not constrained by the
number of different models, solutions
and environments that you can operate
in, in order to perfect the vehicle of
your choice. That is the beauty of virtual
testing. "
When I thought about it later, what
Bryson was really describing was the
conceptual differences between what
physical and digital prototypes represent.
Even as we get closer and closer to
not needing physical prototypes, there
remain real and important differences
between the two today. Simulations
might be able to get us 90 or 95 or 98%
4 June 2024
" zero prototypes " actually represents
All The Prototypes. In the digital world,
you can shake out a bunch of " close but
no cigar " options on your way to the
physical prototypes that cover the last
10 or 5 of 2% of the work you need to
do to know you've got it right. He also
pointed out that the ability to test an
(effectively) infinite number of variations
is absolutely vital to bringing constantly
updated vehicles to consumers.
Thanks to advanced simulated tests of
NHV, handling, ADAS
technologies and all the
rest, paired with the ongoing
shift to software-defined
vehicles, updates
can be brought to consumers
in new (and, with
OTA updates, late-model)
vehicles much sooner than
ever before, something
new car shoppers are certainly
interested in. It's clear that rapid
changes in how vehicles come to life
are the only things that will bring rapid
changes in vehicles to life.
Mathematicians and engineers quickly
realized up top that I wasn't talking
about the actual concepts of zero and
infinity as used in advanced mathematics
(or just to explain wonderfully interesting
concepts of the universe). As important
as these ideas are for humanity's
ability to calculate the details of our
modern world, they're just two sides of
the same coin when it comes to the rapidly
advancing world of vehicle prototyping.
However we end up describing
the massive changes happening in the
automotive industry, the answer lies
somewhere between zero and infinity.
Sebastian Blanco, Editor-in-Chief
Ryan Gehm
Associate Editor
Ryan.Gehm@sae.org
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Assistant Editor
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Amanda Hosey
Editor, Custom Content
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AUTOMOTIVE ENGINEERING
Automotive Engineering - June 2024

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Automotive Engineering - June 2024
