Mike Yeager, Area Vice President, India and Japan at Ansys Inc. says: In sectors like electric vehicles (EVs), simulation can reduce development time up to 50%. Similarly, in Advanced Driver-Assistance Systems (ADAS) and Autonomous Vehicles (AVs), virtual testing enables up to a 30% reduction in development and testing efforts.
You have been in the CAD/CAE industry for almost 30 years. Can you tell us how this industry has evolved over the past three decades and what is in store for the future?
Computer Aided Engineering (CAE) has evolved significantly. CAE has seen wide acceptance across industries, users, and stages of product development. There are several factors that drove the adoption of CAE.
Ease of use, more computing power, addition of different physics modelling capabilities, ability to visualize results to help better understand the physics are some of the capabilities of CAE software that have contributed to increased adoption. While the features and capabilities of software were improving, the software was also subjected by users, research labs to validate complex engineering and scientific phenomena. The numerical and mathematical models were continuously improved, and the CAE community (industries, academics, researchers) developed robust processes that have delivered accurate results faster thus establishing a strong confidence on what simulation can do.
The recent technology trends such as autonomy, electrification, additive manufacturing to name a few have pushed the application of CAE to the next level. Simulation has now become an essential tool in the innovation and design for this technology and have found adoption across stages of product development. Industries such as healthcare and pharma have adopted simulation to innovate and design medical devices and improve productivity.
The simulation software will continue to evolve. Advent of GPUs and AI/ML techniques are going to play a critical role in the next phase of evolution. GPUs are making big calculations of the order of billions of elements possible in a few hours, which could not even be thought of earlier. AI/ML techniques are also becoming attractive in getting predictions for newer designs based on the past data (both field data and simulation data, or fusion of these two) in minutes.
Simulation tools have reached to a level and are truly powering innovation to ultimately drive human advancement. Simulation is now credited with making this world a better place for all of us.
Simulation via Ansys has saved significant development time and hundreds of thousands of dollars in physical testing. Can you update on the current savings in development times?
Simulation has fundamentally reshaped the product development landscape, and Ansys is at the forefront of this transformation. Today, our customers are seeing significant development time reductions and substantial cost savings by minimizing the reliance on physical prototypes. In sectors like electric vehicles (EVs), simulation can reduce development time up to 50%. Similarly, in Advanced Driver-Assistance Systems (ADAS) and Autonomous Vehicles (AVs), virtual testing enables up to a 30% reduction in development and testing efforts.
For regulatory compliance, such as EMC (electromagnetic compatibility), simulation helps customers shorten compliance timelines by up to 25%. Additionally, through a model-driven approach, companies are achieving up to a 50% reduction in software development and verification and validation (V&V) efforts.
The above numbers may vary based on the vehicle model, features, and the OEMs developing the product, but this is what we have experienced working with some of the OEMs and Tier-1s.
How do you see this progress in the next five years?
Looking ahead, I expect these benefits to deepen even further. With advancements in high-performance computing, AI-enhanced simulation, and greater integration across the product lifecycle, we believe simulation will drive even greater efficiency, potentially enabling more reduction in development times across a wide range of industries. Simulation is no longer just a tool for validation; it’s becoming the engine for innovation and speed to market.
What is the role of simulation in reducing product weight, which is crucial for electric mobility?
Delivering safer, high-performing, cost-effective electric vehicles is a top priority for automakers in India and globally. However, the EV development process has become increasingly complex with multitudes of requirements from the perspective of battery life, safety, and range. Engineering teams face significant challenges with multiple design iterations and rigorous testing to ensure performance, reliability, and safety. This complexity demands an integrated, physics- and software-driven engineering approach, moving away from traditional build-and-test methods.
Ansys has been working with various automotive companies to accelerate EV development through multi-scale and multi-physics simulations, supported by advanced solution practices such as MBSE, workflow automation, AI, reduced-order modelling, digital twin, integrated safety, and more. By leveraging simulation, automakers ensure that safety features are rigorously tested and validated early in the design process, optimize performance through real-time feedback, and enhance range by fine-tuning key parameters within EV components. This enables engineers to iterate faster and more effectively, significantly improving the overall EV design while reducing costs and development time.
With the simulation software market set to reach $36.22 billion by 2030, how will this growth impact Ansys?
I would not comment on the numbers you have mentioned in your question but agree that the simulation software market will continue to see a strong growth and Ansys is in a strong position to ride this growth.
Strong growth, as would be a case for any company, will help Ansys in many ways. We are continuously investing in expanding the capabilities of our software to capitalise on the growth opportunities. This will help deepen adoption of simulation for the new technologies. Increased growth opportunities would also help us further strengthen our engagement with the customers across segment – forming strong partnership in innovating and design of new-age products.
Ansys continue to work with the academics and training community and want to ensure that the market has enough capacity in the form of trained manpower to help customer address their problems using simulation. We are witnessing that startups are playing important role in bringing new products to the market. Ansys, through its startup programme, will continue to help these startups realize their ambition.
I see that the growth will bring strong opportunities for Ansys to contribute to the growth of industries, market, and different segment of customers by bringing out advanced simulation tools that can deliver increased level of productivity and innovations.
How does Ansys help reduce product recalls and ensure perfection in new product development?
In a traditional development process, OEMs have relied on classical engineering principles, taking help from simulations and further building the physical prototype. The prototype undergoes rigorous real-life testing to ensure the product meets the specifications. If the product fails, the process looks at redesign, followed by simulations and prototypes. This process takes a long time and prohibits testing of every specification.
An automated and intelligent development process can significantly accelerate development. This approach leverages Ansys’ advanced technologies, such as multi-physics simulations, automation, data management, and artificial intelligence—key components of digital engineering. Using the Ansys AI/ML ecosystem, historical data usage for future designs becomes an integral part of the development cycle.
Recent automotive recalls have happened due to software issues, battery system malfunctions, which led to fire, and vehicle components, such as airbags, seatbelts, and sensors, not performing as expected. Ansys offers a complete range of solutions for electromobility, ADAS/Automation, Software-Defined vehicles, ICE, and EV complete vehicle developments. These solutions are being utilized across the globe to perform real-life scenario virtual testing using simulations and mimic the vehicle performance under these conditions digitally.
LS-DYNA is a proven gold standard tool for performing crash and occupant safety simulations to predict active and passive safety. Over 90% of OEMs and suppliers globally use LS-DYNA to simulate crash load cases to meet government regulations and NCAP criteria before building the first physical prototype.
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