Winners were announced at the ATTI Awards ceremony on Tuesday June 4, at the Automotive Testing Expo Europe 2024 in Stuttgart, Germany. The ATTI Awards, now in their 17th year, celebrate the world’s leading vehicle engineering suppliers and specialists across software, crash testing, AI and electrified technologies who are driving the industry forward across all areas of automotive testing.
This year, the Alternative Powertrain Test Innovation Award was introduced as a new category in response to the industry’s focus on new-energy vehicle powertrain development and new software technologies that can augment hardware analysis systems or, in some cases, entirely eliminate the need for physical testing.
Secondmind was recognised for helping automotive engineers efficiently address complex e-powertrain calibration challenges, such as thermal management. Secondmind merges physics-informed models with advanced machine learning to offer highly-precise predictions. The e-powertrain application empowers the engineer by enabling them to integrate their deep domain knowledge with its state-of-the-art AI, to create models that not only understand the complex interplay of factors affecting e-motor performance, but that can also quickly adapt to the 'personality' of each individual motor. In automating the most labour-intensive calibration work, Secondmind for Calibration slashes data needs and testbed occupancy by 80%, reduces calibration time by 50% and reduces the need for costly prototypes by 40%.
The panel of 15 international judges, made up of OEM engineers, consultants and technical writers from the automotive development and testing industry, acknowledged Secondmind’s innovation and recognised the potential to apply advanced AI in a way that could help unlock huge efficiencies for alternative powertrain testing. Comments from the judges included:
- Mohammad Behroozi, Senior Vehicle Dynamicist at General Motors, said: "The intelligent automation aspect is a potential game-changer. By drastically reducing manual work and idle time, this efficiency boost could significantly enhance calibration, which is essential for optimising e-powertrain performance and extending range."
- Gemma Hatton, freelance Technical Writer and former F1 Tire Engineer, said: "An innovative example of how AI can be utilised to make testing more efficient. Saving time, testbed occupancy and data has many secondary benefits too, further minimizing the resource and environmental impact of testing without sacrificing accuracy."
- Jahee Campbell-Brennan, Director of Wavey Dynamics, said: "Secondmind addresses one of the key issues for EV powertrain development in advancing the efficiency of the calibration process. Ultimately this will lead to better, more efficient and higher torque products, which will benefit consumers in performance and range."
Commenting on the award, Secondmind CEO Gary Brotman, said: “It is an honour and a privilege to be nominated alongside exceptional companies pushing technology boundaries in vehicle design and development. This award validates the hard work, dedication and creative ingenuity of the Secondmind team, who are all motivated by an insatiable desire to build practical, AI-fuelled software that empowers engineers to break through complexity barriers and design better, cleaner software-defined vehicles, faster.”
