Valeo and Anritsu announced a collaboration to advance virtual validation capabilities for software-defined vehicles, focusing on telematics units and cellular connectivity. The partnership aims to enable more cost-efficient and scalable software development processes by creating realistic digital twins of multi-network environments. The two companies will present a live demonstration of the joint solution at Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2026 in Barcelona, scheduled for March 2–5, 2026.
The automotive industry is shifting toward in-vehicle software-defined architectures, where cellular connectivity links vehicles to cloud infrastructure to deliver ongoing value to end users. This transition increases the number of test parameters required to validate telematics systems across diverse operating conditions and cellular networks.
Traditional validation methods depend on hardware-based testing and manual parameter extraction, requiring complex physical test bench setups. With accelerating Continuous Integration/Continuous Deployment (CI/CD) cycles, shorter vehicle development timelines, and ongoing pressure to reduce vehicle costs and engineering effort, there is a need for faster, automated, and scalable modeling approaches.
Anritsu contributes its software-based In-the-Loop Simulator, which incorporates a virtual engine capable of reproducing real-world field events. This enables the creation of a digital twin that simulates multi-network scenarios, including inter-MNO (Inter Mobile Network Operator) interactions and vehicle-to-everything (V2N2X/V2X) communications involving multiple vehicles, running either in the cloud or on local machines.
Valeo provides its virtual telematics unit, designed to operate across different cellular networks and field conditions as part of software-defined vehicle architectures.
Gilles Mabire, CTO of Valeo’s Brain division, stated that telematics and connectivity represent a strategic component of software-defined architectures. He noted that Valeo’s telematics products must function reliably in varied cellular networks and real-world conditions, while development complexity increases amid shorter vehicle development cycles and cost-reduction targets. He described the combination of a virtual telematics unit and a virtual cellular network running in the cloud as an innovative approach to address these challenges and the foundation of the partnership with Anritsu.
Yukiharu Ogawa, General Manager of Anritsu’s IoT Test Solution Division, said Anritsu has focused on improving the quality of in-vehicle connectivity systems. He explained that stable performance of advanced connectivity services requires software capable of handling real-world edge cases. Anritsu addresses this through a comprehensive toolchain that spans field driving tests to laboratory simulations. He added that integration with Valeo’s software development solution allows car manufacturers to perform end-to-end verification of in-vehicle systems and backend infrastructure within a fully virtualized environment.
