AVL's Reimagine Mobility Podcast

Revolutionizing Automotive Development with Guido Bairati

• AVL, North America

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Join us in this episode of the Reimagine Mobility podcast as we dive into the future of automotive innovation with Guido Bairati, Managing Director of VI-grade. Guido shares his extensive experience in the simulation world, discussing how VI-grade is transforming vehicle development through cutting-edge simulators and virtual testing techniques. Learn how these advancements are reducing development times, improving vehicle performance, and shaping the future of mobility. Don't miss insights on the role of AI, virtual reality, and the incredible collaboration between OEMs and suppliers in achieving near-perfect digital twins.

Guido Bairati

VI-grade, Managing Director 1995 - 1998

Technical Consultant at Volvo Car Corporation 1998 - 2002

Adams Product Dev and Technical Consultant 2002

Joined MSC Software as Key Account Mgr 2006

Master in Marketing & Communication 2008

Joined VI-grade as Sales Director 2018

Promoted VP Sales & Marketing 2022

Promoted Managing Director 

25+ years of experience in the simulation world!

VI-grade is the global provider of disruptive vehicle development solutions that are paving the way to developing vehicles with Zero Prototypes.  

 Its human-centric solutions comprise industry-leading real-time simulation software, professional driving simulators, and Hardware-in-the-Loop solutions that accelerate product development across the transportation industry. 

 

The company’s suite of scalable driving simulators covers a wide performance range to assess the multi-disciplinary driving experience. These proven solutions enable OEMs, suppliers, research centers, motorsport teams, and universities to reduce physical prototypes while accelerating innovation in their quest to get ever nearer to achieving the ultimate development goal of Zero Prototypes. 

 VI-grade is part of HBK’s Virtual Test Division, which focuses on providing real-time software, simulator, and hardware-in-the-loop solutions to virtually test products throughout the development cycle, helping companies accelerate innovation and reduce time-to-market, and improve their competitive advantage. For further information, please visit https://www.vi-grade.com

 https://www.linkedin.com/company/vi-grade

https://www.vi-grade.com/en/zeroPrototypes/

If you would like to be a guest on the show contact: namarketing@avl.com

Oh, and welcome to the latest edition of the Reimagine Mobility podcast series. I'm here with Guido by reading from the eye. Great and Guido, and explain a little bit your background where you're coming from. Explain what V grade provides and does in the mobility space as quite a bit, and a very important message. I'm sure that you have to hear for our listeners and viewers, and then let's jump in and reimagine mobility together here as we looking to the future, and also a little bit to the past and where we've come from. Thanks, Stephan. Thanks for having me here today. It's a it's a pleasure. Yes. As you said, my name is, Guido Bairati. I can say that, I spent my entire career in, in the simulation world. I started back in 1995, as a technical consultant. at the Volvo car, in Sweden. I was working on the simulation department. Then I work as, software developer for, a company called Mechanical Dynamics. That was the company developing, Adam's, which was, and is still, the leading software for, multi body, simulation. And then I moved to a sales role, at MSC software, where I took care of, automotive customers, in, in Italy. Then in 2008, I joined VI-grade. VI-grade at that time was a small startup, and I actually contributed, to its growth from, a small startup company to the point, when we sold the, company to spectrum in, 2018 and, during that acquisition, we joined, We joined, HBK, and, now I'm, managing director of of the VI-grade within the HBK virtual tester division at HBK, we are helping our customers accelerate the product innovation, across the virtual and into also the physical and in process, testing and specifically, VI-grade that belongs to the virtual test division. And therefore we are helping our customers in the transition from a physical testing, into a virtual testing, with, simulation software, with simulators and with hardware in the loop. techniques. primarily we are working in the automotive, industry, and the automotive industry is going through a major, revolution, I would say, major disruption. And, but at the end of this part of a new challenges, everybody has the same, needs decrease. The time to market the decrease will be, development cost, and developing, developing innovative products. And thanks to our software and our driving simulators, we are actually helping our customers to be more productive, in their development process. Very good. Great, great summary, great background. Let's start right at the beginning that you mentioned Volvo. So my 20 year old daughter told me the other day, she's going to buy a Volvo as our next car because and I said, well, why? Why Volvo in the U.S., Volvo is not necessarily the top brand. Right. And she says, well because they're the safest cars. Okay. That's a that's a good statement and certainly appreciated. Let's take safety as a springboard and VI-grade, you have some great simulators as you just mentioned and simulation technologies. Yes. What what is the most important thing that you guys are looking for to help a OEM or a supplier of components that could use one of your simulators? Is it that you can test more in a shorter period of time? Is it that you can test more corner cases and use cases than you could ever could in the real world? Is it the ability to consistently make upgrades on an almost daily basis, instead of having to wait for test results to come in from the from the real world, from a test track, highlight a little bit more. More simulation tools. And as you mentioned, hardware in the loop tools are really helping the mobility space as we reinventing ourselves as we go through this disruption. As you just mentioned, and as we progress into the future and reimagine mobility, I would say, all of what you said is true. And, we do almost everything you said we thanks to simulation in, in simulators, our, customers who are primarily automotive OEMs, tier one suppliers, engineering service providers, racing, teams, in the universities are actually able to build, a virtual, copy of the car or the component that they have to develop. and actually, getting answers, getting results even before the first prototype is built. And that is what the simulation does, is it seems, 20, 30 years we driving simulators. I think we made another step forward. We allow our customers not only to study the behavior of their vehicle virtually, but also to get the subjective feedback. So we allow the, we a professional driver, a human being, to actually drive, a virtual prototype, and, given feedback to engineers. So basically what we have done, it's about the we allow the engineers simulation engineers and test drivers who have been historically to separate the department, two separate wards working together and actually working, fast together. So we actually allow customers to have a very quick, agile, development loops in which a virtual vehicle model, it's, it's developed. The test driver drives it on the simulator, gives feedback, the model is modified, and the driver can test immediately. A new version I can tell you about sometimes, modification are done, while the driver is still on the simulator, it doesn't even have to get out of the simulator to test a new a new car. So one of the main advantages of this approach is that, things can be done much earlier in the development cycle, but also more, solutions can be tested because you don't have to build a new prototype. You don't have to build a new suspension. You just modify a virtual model. You just modify a fine, to test the ten different tires. You just have ten different files and you test those, you just test those files. Take take perfect to explain it so we don't. And let me ask you this. You talked about faster. You talked about it an incredibly fast feedback loop, so to speak. I give you feedback on how I'm driving this simulator already adjusting it. You know, on the next curve that I'm taking, I'm already half adjusted exactly, so to speak. Right, exactly. Give a give us a little bit of an idea from a quantified perspective. How much faster are OEMs to to develop or validate or create a functional account with your simulator than, than without? So was it before a, a, a two year endeavor to create a, a vehicle that has a nice, radius that it takes into turn and, the chassis dynamics and vehicle dynamics work very well. Now with your simulator, that two years is turned into only one and a half years. Give us a little bit of an idea. What? What do these tools truly, truly help? Obviously. Besides, again, an infinite amount of data collected and used again in the digital twins. But how much faster is your technology able to allow OEMs or tier one suppliers to develop new technologies? I mean, it's, it's a very good question. And, I have a specific metrics from our, customers, which I want to mention because those are, metrics that are publicly, available. A few years ago, Volvo declared that thanks to the usage of the driving simulator, they managed to decrease by 50% the development time of their SUV. recently, Ferrari, said, during one of our user conference. But we are organizing annually. But, right now, thanks to simulation and simulators, they are able to predict virtually 98%. of the performance of their car. That means that the when they build the first prototype, they just have to do a fine tuning to which we handle the design 100%. recently on LinkedIn, Bridgestone, published a very interesting, video in which they say that the thanks to a virtual approach, they have reduced, the physical testing by 80%. And another customer, which I cannot mention, told me that the one week, and the simulator, it's worth four weeks on the proving ground. So you can, actually say, if I'm not wrong about you have a 75% improvement. So it doesn't matter if it's 50% of Volvo 98 functionality, 75 or 80. We are talking about to double digit improvement the thanks to a virtual approach. So our goal is to help our customers to build the the first prototype right. Almost being, ready for production car. we always say that our mission is to help our customer win zero prototype challenge. That's. Those are incredible numbers, Guido. So. So then let me ask you this again. This is a podcast about how we reimagine mobility. So with 50% being the lowest number you've mentioned here and your stated goal of helping your OEM customers to get to a zero prototype vehicle, situation, which, by the way, as we all know, many OEMs have declared that as as being their goal. Yes. How much longer is it taken that we get this 50% to let's not quite quite go to a 100%? I struggle with really seeing 100% probability here in all virtual, but whatever 90 plus percent. Yeah. What are we talking to you, Guido? Are you seeing this happening in two years? Are you seeing this happening in the next 5 to 10 years? What? What is it that that you see as as we look into the future here with us? it depends a lot from company to company. I have to say, Stefan, that some companies are already very close to, that target. And by the way, I agree with you. There would be always the need for some, physical prototypes. Of course, at the end of the car needs to be tested, but we really want to decrease the a number of, of the physical prototypes, and some companies are already there. others, are not there yet. So if you ask me, when globally, the automotive industry will reach that target, probably in five years. But, I can tell you in some companies, especially in, in Europe, in, in North America, this is already a reality. And, I didn't mention that, but, the, the discipline that we help our customer to study with our solution are and typically vehicle dynamics ride the comfort and NVH. So we help them to study how the car handles, how the car rides, how the car, sounds. But, it seems we are talking about innovation now. More and more, our customers are using simulation and simulators and virtual reality technology for, ADAS for autonomous vehicle, and also for the so-called HMI studies to see how the driver interacts with all different, you know, devices, infotainment system that we have in, in, in modern, cars. And there you can imagine the advantage of, having the possibility to switch from one dashboard configuration to another one without actually building that. dashboard configuration physically. Very interesting. So that brings me to an idea in the, in the U.S. and we have different types of organization in, in Europe and in Asia as well. But a company such as J.D. Power and Associates, for example, that tests consumers impression of vehicles. Do you already have customers that use your simulator before to even develop a a vehicle, or decide to develop a certain feature set for a vehicle that have consumers or potential consumers? Use the simulator to give the OEM feedback on how you just mentioned the HMI Impacts then the lighting impacts then, the ride and drive the NVH all of those parameters or characteristics you just mentioned in place. Yes. earlier I mentioned that, we allow that professional drivers to work with, engineers, but, there is an increasing number of companies who want to use, the driving simulator also to expose of a future product to potential customers and to do, psychological studies, see how they behave. So more and more common, let's say common people, common drivers like you and me are exposed to, driving simulator to provide feedback in a earlier phase when changes can still be done. You know, if a, if a large OEM, ask now a potential customer to drive a car and then they get a negative feedback, they have a little possibility to change the car because very likely they are at the late stage of a development cycle. But if you can do that much earlier, one year earlier, two years earlier, then you can get the valuable feedback which can be used in the development to better to develop a better car. All right. Right. Amazing. So again, maybe a little bit more of a provocative question. My next one here. And again truly focus on as we reimagine mobility with the onset to really now it's not the onset anymore, but really starting to hit this first, the first high point of usage of AI in the automotive space. We don't in five years. Do we still need a simulator or will AI have pretty much all the data, gather the data and be able to configure what we just talked about a, a, a physical prototype based on digital data and consumer preferences that the AI algorithm collects from from Europe to certain countries in Europe to global, etc. we will in HIL Will a simulator like what you guys are doing right now still be needed or will be replaced truly by by software and software only in the form of, of of a major AI initiative here. Well, AI is, undeniably getting more and more, visibility and importance. I was a personally two months ago, I was at the CES in Vegas, and, everything there was about, AI everyone and, definitely artificial intelligence who will help us and our customer to better analyze, the data that are generated. But at the end, the cars will always be driven by human beings. So I strongly believe that, and very subjective feedback, will always be important. The human factor will be important. Therefore, at the end, it's important that, a driver, no matter if it's a professional driver or an a common everyday driver, has to go on, simulator and test it. and give, give is, is feedback personal even, on, autonomous cars, even if we will not to drive a those cars physically, the human acceptance of those cars would be extremely important in the, in the in order to develop autonomous cars, which would be accepted by, by us, by the majority of people, we need to make sure that when they are on an autonomous car, they feel comfortable. Agreed. Slightly different question, Guido, for you and interested in your perspective. Because one thing I often do, even within AVL, where we have obviously a simulation organization, but also when we talk to potential customers and suppliers, is this this topic of correlation? Right. How well does the simulation tool, or in this case maybe an HIL a driving simulator correlate to the real world? I know 20 years ago, or maybe even more now, when simulation tools came more into the form as we know them today. Correlation obviously was very, very low. But over the last several years this has tremendously increased to the point as you share before that, we can start talking about truly a zero prototype, world because, the, the reality and the digital twin are so close together. Yes. Two questions for you on that. How close is it together now? Are we within 20, 30% of what reality is? Are we already within 2 or 3%. And then what are we going to see over the next couple of years or next five years? Again, as we reimagine mobility and discuss this topic here? we are in, in the range of, few percents, sometimes 1% or less of 1% of course, in order to reach those, results, you need to have a good, simulation models. And in order to have good simulation models, you need to have good data. otherwise, if you don't feed your, simulation model with good data, you just get, what you what you input, but with good data, 1%. it's it's normal. And here I think it, it's very important, that, OEMs, engineering, service providers and the suppliers are working together because at the end, a car, like a real car that is assembled with tires coming from a one supply of a steering system from another, one brake system from another one. it the same happens in very, in the, in the virtual world. And more and more often we observe that OEMs are working on a simulator, with suppliers is very often tire companies are working with OEMs in order to improve the simulation models on the simulator. And they really work. You know, some years ago, they used to meet, at the Proving Ground and to test, the 10 or 15 tires that was mentioned before. Now they more and more often meet in a simulation center where the tire supplier, instead of a rubber, brings, tire property files, files with the tire properties. And then the OEM brings the vehicle, the vehicle model. So this, integration, this collaboration between suppliers, universities, and, it's a key for advancing the quality of, of the simulation models. And then, of course, software vendors, like, like, I feel like a VI-grade, like, a lot of our companies are continuously improving the quality of their models. tire. Think about tire models, mathematic tire models have, increased dramatically in the last ten, 15 years, 15 years ago to perform a one second of simulation, you had to wait the ten, 15 minutes. Now, most ideas run in real time on a on a simulator. So things can only improve with the improvement of software, with improvement of hardware always getting more, always faster and faster and with a better collaboration between the, companies. Completely agree on two more questions, Guido for you. So so the one you kind of maybe already alluded to a little bit of what, what you kind of looking for going forward, but what are some of the technologies that you're mostly excited about happening in your space in the simulation space, or maybe in the driving simulator space that's that you're going to see happening over the next 2 to 5 years? What would that be? Look at two comes to my mind. One it's one it's a virtual and augmented reality. that is we are just at the beginning, but this is going to, give us a lot of more possibilities. I just mentioned before, the possibility of running different HMI studies really makes you, a virtual reality headset that you can just project, a different dashboard, a different set of, screens, and you can see how the, the, the driver, interacts and also how he gets distracted eventually by all those, devices. That is a technology that is just a beginning. And, I think he has a huge potential. the other one is, something that we are developing at the VI grade. So what we are doing now, it's really to, try to give the customer the possibility to experience all different, attributes, all different discipline at the same time. So we call it the multi attribute, simulation, where, the driver on a simulator can experience, how the car handles, how the car rides and also how the car sounds and the same time, because in the past there were, simulation programs and simulators fully dedicated, only to vehicle dynamic. So rider or NVH And what we are doing at VI-grade is really to unify that and give a, a unique experience to the driver, which is actually what you experience when you drive your car at the end that you you experience all different discipline, low frequency, high frequency sound, the noise, vibration at the same time. Very interesting. So maybe the next step should be then also smell and and the when the, maybe when the windows down and all these. But I'm sure you guys are going to get there. Yes. That is part of the, the subjective experience. And we haven't done anything about that. But it's definitely around the corner very good, very good. And very last question for you, Guido. What is the next car you going to buy and why? well, a good question. I don't want to just to name a specific brand. well, I think my, my next car would be, definitely an electric vehicle. we, I mean, I think, the path it's, signed and, the, the automotive industry is going in that direction. but I still have some, uncertainty how quick the transition to EVs, will happen, but, but, I think it's going to happen, and it's, it's around the corner. And, you know, I was, a couple of weeks ago, I was in China, and, you know, those guys have already and made the transition and, in that, for example, in the country where I live, we are a little bit behind, but by the is coming is coming. So definitely an electric vehicle. Yes, absolutely. And I know in the country where you're living, there's a lot of different types of options you already have from a luxury vehicle that's electric to a sports vehicle that's electric and to a, to a more general purpose vehicle as well. So thank you very much, Guido. This has been very, interesting not only for me, but I'm sure also for the listeners and viewers that will see this, the inside here of what you guys are doing at VI grade and certainly what real world simulators and together with the digital advancements and digital twins can do for the automotive space. Thank you very much. Thanks for having me today. Thank you. It was very interesting and a pleasure. Thank you Guido.