Nardò’s High-Tech Transformation

They’ll soon be off. “Test in three, two, one seconds,” says the voice from the radio. As soon as the countdown ends, the silver Porsche Cayenne immediately springs into action. But Mario Toledo, Test Engineer at Porsche Engineering, has neither his hands on the wheel nor his feet on the pedals. Instead, a driving robot is in command and ensuring that the car stays safely on track.

Together with the Cayenne, a gray Panamera is also on the driving dynamics platform of the NTC in southern Italy this morning. At the Porsche Engineering proving ground, engineers are now investigating the performance of autonomous driving functions. Toledo has printed out a whole stack of test scenarios on the tray above the dashboard, including: driving in parallel lanes with sufficient distance between vehicles, changing lanes to the right or left, and avoiding an oncoming vehicle.

Such tests for autonomous driving functions at SAE Level 4 (fully automated driving) are now part of everyday life at the NTC—this is where the mobility of tomorrow is tested until it is ready for series production. But continuous development is also required of the NTC itself: “A revolution is looming in the automotive industry over the next five to ten years, caused by trends such as autonomous driving, connectivity and e-mobility,” says NTC Managing Director Antonio Gratis. “We must adapt to this—with new infrastructure and new capabilities.”

What this means can be seen on the circuit of the test center: the inner circular track, which in the past was used primarily for testing commercial vehicles, was given 48 kilometers of new road markings in 2020 and now part of it looks like a three-lane motorway under EU standards and part of it a three-lane US highway. “The new road markings are crucial for us,” explains Davide Palermo, Manager of the ADAS Competence Center. “Without them, tests for autonomous driving functions on SAE Level 4 would not be possible.” Together with his colleague Toledo and another test rider on a motorcycle, Palermo performs predefined maneuvers typical of the highway: lane changes and driving in the center lane with and without another road user ahead.

In the future, some tests at the NTC might actually be carried out without any people at all: in February 2020, a Porsche Cayenne drove more than 600 kilometers at a maximum speed of 130 km/h on the circuit—without human intervention. During the endurance test, the steering wheel and pedals were operated by a steering robot, and a test driver was only on board for safety reasons. “This form of test automation promises higher efficiency and better reproducibility,” says Palermo. “But it cannot completely replace human drivers.”

In addition to the improvements to the test tracks, a further innovation is preparing the NTC circuit for the future. In the future, a fiber optic cable will act as a data backbone, connecting displays, traffic lights and transmitter masts along the route, thus enabling communication between vehicles and the surrounding infrastructure (vehicle-to-infrastructure). To this end, the NTC has prepared the infrastructure for laying 91 kilometers of fiber optic cable around the circular track and the vehicle dynamics platform.

The NTC is also working on its own mobile communications infrastructure, which will enable further tests of autonomous driving functions and vehicle-to-vehicle communication. And in a few years’ time, “Sim City” is supposed to be added as a new test area—a city with moving houses and traffic signs, in which different urban scenarios can be set up for testing advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS).

Antonio Leuzzi, Senior Manager Project Management, gives a practical demonstration of another upgrade of the circular track. “Do you notice any bumps?” he asks while driving around the 12.6-kilometer circular track at 297 km/h. “Last year we completely renewed the asphalt—and it is now so incredibly smooth that you don’t feel any vibrations even at high speeds. This is better for drivers and leads to more accurate results, for example in vibration measurements—especially important for electric vehicles with their inherently low noise levels.”

An investment in electric mobility is also located next to the workshop area of the NTC. Customers of the test center can recharge their electrically powered test vehicles in the shortest possible time at two rapid charging stations developed by Porsche Engineering. A total of six such HPC (High Power Charging) stations are distributed over the site, four of them with 920 volts and 320 kW, two with 950 volts and 350 kW. “The NTC should be like a city of the future,” explains Salvatore Baldi, Senior Manager Facilities Management. “That’s why we have installed all kinds of charging systems—from wall boxes with seven, 11 or 22 kW to 50 kW charging stations and HPC systems.”

To put the vehicle batteries of the future through their paces, the NTC has also upgraded its fire test facilities. Tank systems have been tested here for over ten years now, but the safety of lithium-ion batteries is now increasingly coming to the fore. At the NTC, for example, they can be exposed to a flame of up to 700 degrees Celsius to put their fire resistance to the test. And should a dangerous situation arise during a test with an electric vehicle, a special container is available at the NTC fire station. “There we can put electric cars and batteries in critical condition under a kind of quarantine,” says Baldi. “We pull them in with a winch and then close the container completely.” When the smoke detectors sound the alarm, the sprinkler system starts to reduce the flames in the initial phase of the fire. At the same time the flooding system is activated, which pumps 800 liters of water per minute at a pressure of 6 bar into the container. During the design and construction of the system, the NTC worked together with Denios’ occupational safety experts.

The NTC is also continuously working on the renovation of existing workshops and the expansion of workshop capacities. By 2022, plans envision building 20 modular workshops that can be flexibly adapted to the needs of the users. In addition to the modernized technical infrastructure, customers will also be able to benefit from more extensive engineering services for their test vehicles. “So far, we have mainly rented out our testing grounds,” explains Gratis. “In the future we want to take on more turnkey projects: the customer brings their vehicle to the NTC and our team carries out all tests on site—right up to the final report and engineering recommendations. Customers benefit from reduced travel costs and greater efficiency because they get everything at the NTC from a single source.”

To implement this plan, Pierpaolo Positano, Senior Manager Engineering, is expanding his team of more than 70 engineers, mechatronics engineers, technicians and drivers, adding new skills in areas such as ADAS and e-mobility. “We have gained a lot of experience in recent years, for example with reliability tests or tests on driving dynamics,” says Positano. “Now we are facing new challenges, which we are meeting with specialized groups of experts—for example for NVH, ADAS and electric drives. In the future, we will be able to offer not only kilometers on our test tracks, but also our know-how—in other words, higher-value services for our customers. A magical mix of infrastructure and expertise awaits you.”

The NTC finds the necessary experts on the labor market on the one hand, and through its close cooperation with universities on the other. For example, Positano and Nildo Sestini, Senior Manager Human Resources, visited universities in southern and northern Italy and gave the students tasks they could have fun with. “We don’t just want to give a presentation, we want to enter into a dialog with the young people,” says Sestini. Groups from universities regularly visit the NTC as well. “This is always a good opportunity to get to know each other better and find suitable candidates for us,” says Sestini. “We offer promising students an internship for a period of time designed to allow them to gain experience and competence and to contribute to our center.”

Content-related collaboration with the universities in Lecce (vehicle dynamics), Bari (batteries and battery management systems), Florence (ADAS and autonomous driving) and Naples (vehicle and motorcycle dynamics) also results in regular contacts with top young talents. Sestini believes in the NTC’s growing appeal to bright minds: “Those who work for us are part of a great adventure: the transformation of the automotive sector.”

Participants in Formula Student are considered particularly promising talents in the automotive industry. The NTC is a sponsor of the team from the University of Lecce, but does not regard its commitment as a mere recruiting measure—rather, the test center also wants to make a contribution to development in southern Italy. “Our commitment to Formula Student and in other areas fosters the growth not only of the NTC, but of the entire region,” says Sestini. “We therefore want to integrate ourselves even more strongly into the ecosystem around us. This includes schools, universities and local institutions.”

“We are continuously developing our infrastructure, our expertise and our team,” says Gratis, summarizing the many activities at the NTC. “We always keep an eye on the megatrends in the automotive industry. And just as new technologies will soon revolutionize the driving experience, our test center will also be moving into a new future. The NTC 2.0 is fast approaching.”

Porsche Engineering’s long-established Nardò Technical Center is investing in new infrastructure and its engineering capacities. The aim is to be able to offer NTC customers a comprehensive range of services—always oriented towards automotive megatrends such as autonomous driving, connected vehicles and e-mobility.

Text first published in the Porsche Engineering Magazine, issue 1/2021.

Text: Christian Buck
Contributors: Antonio Gratis, Roberto Buttazzi, Pierpaolo Positano
Photos: Theodor Barth

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Cayenne
Fuel consumption (city): 11.5–11.2 l/100 km
Fuel consumption (highway): 8.2–8.1 l/100 km
Fuel consumption (combined): 9.4–9.2 l/100 km
CO₂ emissions (combined): 215–210 g/km
Energy efficiency class: D

Panamera
Fuel consumption (city): 11.4–11.1 l/100 km
Fuel consumption (highway): 7.5–7.0 l/100 km
Fuel consumption (combined): 8.8–8.6 l/100 km
CO₂ emissions (combined): 201–197 g/km
Energy efficiency class: D

Taycan 4S
Power consumption (combined) (Performance Battery): 26.2 kWh/100 km
Power consumption (combined) (Performance Battery Plus): 27.0 kWh/100 km
CO₂ emissions (combined): 0 g/km
Energy efficiency class: A+

Taycan Turbo
Power consumption (combined): 28.0 kWh/100 km
CO₂ emissions (combined): 0 g/km
Energy efficiency class: A+

Taycan Turbo S
Power consumption (combined): 28.5 kWh/100 km
CO₂ emissions (combined): 0 g/km
Energy efficiency class: A+