Driving V2X Innovation and Automotive Mobility with System-Level Digital Twins

Today’s vehicles are no longer isolated machines. Instead, they are intelligent platforms capable of bidirectional communication with external systems such as cloud services, 5G TN/NTN networks, other vehicles, and road infrastructure. 

From advanced driver-assistance systems to automotive IoT, modern mobility relies on the seamless interaction between hardware, sensors, and software. These systems promise safer, smarter transportation but also introduce new complexities in validating end-to-end performance. Interoperability challenges, cybersecurity risks, and navigating complex vehicle-to-everything (V2X) networks are making automotive system design more multi-faceted than ever. 

Fortunately, many of these challenges can be mitigated before deployment through system-level simulations and digital twins. By creating virtual representations of vehicle ecosystems, automotive organizations can design, test, and optimize solutions in a controlled and repeatable environment. This helps reduce risk, accelerate development, and ensure reliability in V2X systems. 

Below, we explore six ways simulation transforms the design and validation of connected vehicle systems. 

1. Vehicle Network Design & Optimization

Connected vehicles continuously interact with their surroundings, exchanging data with other cars, road infrastructure, and networks – for example. This connectivity enables benefits such as proactive safety notifications, improved traffic flow, enhanced mobility, and real-time crash alerts. 

Automotive IoT (Internet of Things) is making this possible. It refers to the integration of sensors, applications, software, and gadgets into vehicles to connect them to the surrounding city and infrastructure.

System-level digital twins help you optimize V2X communications before deployment. This includes connections between vehicles, pedestrians, networks, smart traffic systems, wireless base stations, and other surrounding infrastructure. The term V2N, or vehicle-to-network, is used to describe communication specifically between vehicles and networks.  

By simulating these interactions, you can observe how networks behave in varying traffic densities, terrains, and signal interference. Simulating the entire communications chain during the design phase allows you to identify and resolve potential issues and bottlenecks before they become costly to fix. This proactive approach helps prevent expensive redesigns after hardware investments. 

Simulation also improves the flexibility to iterate, test alternative technologies, and explore new features to discover the best solution for each automotive application. After thorough virtual testing, organizations can deploy systems with greater confidence of their performance and functionality. 

As vehicles move across different environments, they may connect to various terrestrial and non-terrestrial networks, including 5G, LTE, and other networks through terrestrial base stations, satellites, drones, and HAPS. Simulation enables analysis of network handovers during vehicle movements and helps mitigate signal interference and coexistence issues between these systems. This is critical for ensuring uninterrupted connectivity.  

2. Modeling Vehicle Movements 

Vehicle motion is dynamic and influenced by variables such as velocity, trajectory, traffic density, and environmental conditions. These aspects, in turn, affect efficiency, energy consumption, and communication, for example. Simulation provides a powerful tool for modeling these dynamics in detail. 

Through virtual simulation environments, you can replicate vehicle movements, acceleration patterns, and trajectories across realistic terrains. Analyze interactions with other vehicles, devices, and infrastructure, evaluating a multitude of factors such as mutual visibility, audibility and other forms of environmental awareness and observability. 

Simulators also make it possible to study the effects of distance, such as impact zones, communication latency, and collision probability. For instance, how does traffic density impact network speed? How does distance influence collision probability or hazard detection? 

System-level digital twins allow organizations to test high-risk scenarios that would be difficult or dangerous to replicate physically. Evasive maneuvers, obstacle avoidance, and sudden stops can be modeled without risking lives or assets. This also helps prepare responses to potential on-road threat scenarios before they occur. 

3. Cybersecurity & Data Integrity

As vehicles become increasingly software-defined and connected, cybersecurity emerges as a critical concern. Modern vehicles integrate telematics, infotainment, ADAS (advanced driver-assistance systems), and V2X systems, which process and transmit sensitive data such as location information. This also makes them attractive targets for cyber threats. 

When designing V2X communication systems, manufacturers must therefore implement robust encryption protocols and security measures. Simulation provides a platform for testing network resilience in realistic operating environments, making it easier to identify vulnerabilities early in the development cycle. 

In simulation, you can model communication disruptions and attacks such as jamming, spoofing, and denial-of-service, and evaluate their impact on network performance. Determine appropriate countermeasures and the best ways to secure networks from these attacks. 

Our platform lets you precisely recreate scenarios for rigorous, repeatable testing. You can easily introduce variations to explore what-if conditions and compare performance across alternative approaches. Once your scenario is complete, export comprehensive analytics and detailed performance reports to support confident, data-driven decisions. 

4. Safety & Risk Management

Safety is a top priority in automotive innovation, involving anticipation and risk mitigation under diverse conditions. Safety planning must account for vehicle dynamics, environmental variability, sensor reliability, network interoperability, and human factors – all of which influence how vehicles operate in real-world situations. 

Simulation strengthens system resilience by enabling quantitative risk assessment based on parameters such as velocity, distance, visibility, and connectivity. You can evaluate, for example, trajectory planning under limited visibility, and steering maneuvers for obstacle avoidance at high velocity. 

ADAS systems enhance driving safety by reducing human error but designing them requires thorough planning. However, physical testing on hardware is expensive and time-consuming, making simulation an efficient alternative. 

ADAS capabilities span from safety alerts to full vehicle automation, covering features such as automatic emergency braking, adaptive cruise control, parking assistance, and blind spot detection. These functions rely on sensors like cameras, RADAR, LiDAR, GPS, and GNSS. Advanced system simulation enables you to model the performance and interoperability of these systems. 

High-risk and worst-case scenarios, which are often impractical to test physically, can also be modeled virtually to develop proactive safety strategies.

5. Smart Cities & Traffic Systems

As urban environments evolve into smart ecosystems, mobility becomes a connected experience. While V2X communication can enhance traffic efficiency and safety, it also creates intricate interdependencies that must be planned strategically. 

System-level simulation makes it possible to model large-scale city environments with thousands of vehicles, base stations, and diverse traffic demands.  

You can predict congestion patterns, optimize routing strategies, and evaluate city-wide performance under conditions such as sensor outages or road closures. This level of insight is invaluable for designing resilient systems that maintain reliability even under stress and unexpected situations. 

Simulation also supports testing of V2I (vehicle-to-infrastructure) and V2P (vehicle-to-pedestrian) technologies. V2I enables vehicles to communicate with road infrastructure such as smart traffic lights and road signs, while V2P facilitates real-time communication between vehicles and pedestrians, such as hazard alerts.