Advertorial: The car of the future

The Dutch town of Helmond may only be a small city in the Netherlands, but it is part of the Brainport Eindhoven region, which is, according to Forbes magazine, the world’s most innovative region. Universities like Eindhoven, Aachen and Leuven are within easy reach, as well as the German automotive industry and the European Commission in Brussels that funds vast research programmes related to mobility.

‘The majority of automotive activities in the Netherlands take place here’, says Daan de Cloe from TNO. Car manufacturers from around the globe travel to Helmond to have their latest innovations developed and tested in one of the labs of TNO, or on the public road between Helmond and Eindhoven, which is regularly used as a test site for cooperative and automated driving.

It is up to the researchers of TNO to demonstrate new concepts and validate simulation models under world conditions. For this purpose, TNO houses the brightest minds in the field of algorithms, modelling, simulation and control, as well as state-of-the-art test facilities used for verification and/or validation. ‘Our unique facilities accommodate entire trucks in order to test them under different climate conditions’, says colleague Caspar Lageweg. ‘To simulate a car driving in the mountains, we lower the pressure in the lab and change the temperature, so it looks as if the vehicle were in northern Sweden in the winter. And a few hours later it could be driving through the Sahara, for example.’