IPG Automotive, the company behind CarMaker software, is celebrating its 40th anniversary in 2024. Today, the company stands for more than just continuously improving the CarMaker product family that is known and used around the world.
The company also offers holistic solutions covering the whole development cycle for all vehicle types. A key part of the company’s modular systems is hardware such as the Steering Test Bench, which is also celebrating an anniversary this year.
IPG Automotive started just like many other tech start-ups: a small group of people, a small apartment, and a big idea – the vision of virtual test driving. Early on, IPG Automotive focused on modular software that supports customers with their individual development processes. As early as the 1980s, IPG Automotive recognised the potential of combining software and hardware by using the hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) method.
This was the basis for the first HIL system that launched in 1989. Over the years, the method has been adapted to suit a variety of vehicle components.
10 years of the Steering Test Bench
2014 was a milestone for the company and its portfolio. IPG Automotive started its global expansion with the opening of its first subsidiary in Japan, and it has grown to 16 offices around the world. In the same year, the company built its first Steering Test Bench to improve steering system development. In order to keep pace with the ever-increasing complexity of modern steering systems, IPG Automotive’s test bench enables efficient and reproducible tests in a simulated environment. The bench can be used to test real-world steering systems, whether EPS (electric power steering) or steer-by-wire.
Test benches have many benefits over road testing: they allow flexible testing and identical repetitions, without any risk, and can be used to carry out a wide range of function, performance and validation tests, regardless of the type of steering system. There is no need for a real test driver or a test track. IPG Automotive’s test benches
are tailored to meet the individual needs of each customer. For initial tests or short test tracks, test benches are available for rent at the company’s headquarters in Karlsruhe, Germany.
New innovations ahead: Combined brake and steering test system
2024 not only marks the 10th anniversary of the test bench, but also the birth of another innovation in HIL: the combined brake and steering test system. This system can be used to simulate real-world brake and steering systems in a causal loop in a highly realistic virtual environment. This increases efficiency in the design and realisation of integration tests.
IPG Automotive is more than a hardware innovator: by working closely with customers, the company continuously adapts its entire product portfolio to dynamic market developments. This includes new products, such as the VIRTO virtual vehicle development tool suite, which was released in 2022, as well as the annual releases of the CarMaker product family – CarMaker 14.0 was released in November 2024.
