Discovering the latest trends and technologies reshaping the automotive industry

Today's economies and business models are continually changing with escalating technological intervention and dynamic consumer preferences. Digitalization and increasing automation are revolutionizing every industry, and the automotive landscape is no exception. Autonomous driving, smart and connected vehicles, dynamic human-vehicle interfaces, diverse mobility, and several other trends are disrupting the automotive landscape. To ace the industry, leading auto OEMs need to leverage advanced testing technologies to automate automotive test cases and improve testing coverage and efficiency across multiple real-world scenarios and offer flawless driving experiences.?

Why do today's automotive OEMs need to improve their testing efforts for high-quality end-user experiences?

Consumers refuse to accept anything less than sheer perfection in their automotive and smart vehicle experiences. With smart and connected vehicles, users expect the human-vehicle interfaces to be at par with that of their mobile devices. Following are the vital reasons why today's auto OEMs need to deploy advanced testing technologies:

• Testing across vehicles, regions, localization factors, and form factors

Automotive testing is not limited to a single vehicle model or region. Auto OEMs need to test their products across different vehicles, regions, and form factors. Localization is also critical as vehicles are tailored to meet the specific requirements of different user markets. Testing must consider the diverse environments, regulations, and user preferences globally.

• Testing on real endpoints?

Testing vehicles in real-world conditions is crucial to ensure their performance, safety, and reliability. Additionally, improved test coverage is essential to identify and address potential issues across various scenarios.

• Delivering mobile-first experiences

With the rise of smartphones and mobile connectivity, vehicles need to seamlessly integrate with consumers' digital lifestyles.?

• Delivering infotainment experience that is on par with mobile experience on smartphones

Enhancing the overall infotainment experience has become crucial to meet users' expectations. In-vehicle Infotainment Systems (IVISs) have transformed into smartphone extensions, making them a significant purchasing criterion for buyers. Auto OEMs must ensure flawless performance in entertainment, communication, and navigation to cater to users' ever-growing demands.

Evolving trends shaping the future of automotive testing

Ensuring flawless driving experiences across various vehicles, regions, user engagements, and scenarios is a top priority for automotive manufacturers. To achieve this, manufacturers aim to improve development quality and QA productivity, which helps increase reliability and stability for release cycles and deliver high-quality smart vehicle components. The key trends disrupting the automotive testing landscape are:

• Leveraging data science: AI and ML models ruling the game

The deep AI and ML algorithms deployed in testing smart, connected vehicles and their IVIS use advanced analytics and predictive modeling. This helps identify potential defects and performance issues early in the development process. Data science capabilities further contribute to enhancing test coverage by automating test scenarios and analyzing large amounts of data collected from sensors and connected vehicles.

• Performing tests across real scenarios ?

Infotainment and in-cabin systems often rely on integrating hardware components, such as touchscreens, buttons, and sensors, with software interfaces. Testing across real scenarios ensures that these hardware-software interactions are appropriately tested and validated, guaranteeing smooth functionality and seamless user experiences. Additionally, leveraging real mobile devices for testing automation and developer usage helps simplify the testing process and obtain improved outcomes.?

• Phone as a Key for simplifying tests

Phone as a Key (PaaK) is a cutting-edge technology that enables leading automobile companies to execute their manual and automated test suites seamlessly. With the ability to accurately calculate latency, track performance history on improvements and degradations, analyze Bluetooth connection, and simulate noisy environments, PaaK helps obtain valuable insights and data to improve testing outcomes.?

• Deploying innovative technologies to measure infotainment and in-cabin experience

• Tracking end-user experience?

Capturing user experience KPIs and contextual data using machine learning (ML) is critical for a flawlessly integrated infotainment system that delivers perfect user experiences. Leveraging data science capabilities allow us to monitor critical KPIs like blank screens, buffering/preloader animations, UX restrictions, connectivity and signal strength, call state, interactions and rage tapping, activity transitions, velocity across the app, approximate geolocation, which directly impact user experiences.?

• Performing in-drive testing

In-drive testing plays a vital role in assessing and improving the performance and functionality of infotainment and in-cabin systems in real scenarios. Testers can determine how well the system functions in terms of ease of use, responsiveness, and overall satisfaction for drivers and ensure that the system meets the expectations and requirements of end-users, resulting in a more enjoyable and user-friendly experience.?

• Making data-driven decisions?

Automotive testing is beyond testing vehicles' physical elements or hardware and involves rigorous testing of the different associated software. Data-driven testing methods provide valuable data that are analyzed to gain insights into the system's performance, usage patterns, and potential areas for improvement. The data-driven approach empowers auto OEMs to make informed decisions about feature enhancements, bug fixes, and overall system optimization, leading to continuous improvement of the infotainment system.

Final thoughts?

The future of automotive testing is driven by the need to meet consumers' expectations and deliver flawless end-user experiences. It is critical that auto OEMs adopt advanced testing technologies to ensure superior performance, safety, and reliability across various vehicles, regions, and form factors. Testing on real endpoints, delivering mobile-first experiences, and enhancing infotainment systems to match smartphone experiences are crucial considerations.