2026 UK Smart Prototypes Summit

Connecting simulation, physical testing & engineering data for smarter vehicle development.

Join HBK, VI-grade and HORIBA MIRA on 21 October 2026 for UK Smart Prototypes Summit, a dedicated automotive event combining customer experiences, technical presentations, live demonstrations and access to selected HORIBA MIRA facilities.

About 2026 UK Smart Prototypes Summit

Automotive engineering teams are under increasing pressure to reduce physical prototypes, improve correlation between simulation and testing, manage growing development complexity and make confident decisions earlier.

UK Smart Prototypes Summit brings together engineers, technical specialists and industry leaders from across the UK automotive community to explore how virtual development, physical testing, durability, reliability and engineering-data management can work together throughout the vehicle-development process.

The day will combine concise customer presentations with practical demonstrations and selected HORIBA MIRA facility experiences.

Attendees will hear directly from automotive manufacturers, engineering organisations and technology specialists about how these approaches are being applied within real development programmes.

What to Expect

Customer presentations from leading UK automotive organisations
Practical examples connecting simulation and physical testing
Applications covering vehicle dynamics, NVH, durability and reliability
Engineering-data management and cloud-based collaboration
Live demonstrations of HBK and VI-grade technologies
Access to selected HORIBA MIRA laboratories and facilities
An automotive and motorsport roundtable discussion
Networking with engineers, customers and industry specialists

Event Details:

📅 Date: Wednesday, 21 October 2026

🕘 Time: 08:30–16:00

📍 Location: HORIBA MIRA, Nuneaton, United Kingdom

Participation is free of charge, subject to advance registration and availability.

Register to reserve your place and receive updates about the final speaker line-up, demonstrations, facility visits and practical event information.

Featured Demonstrations

Compact Simulator

Experience an accessible and scalable environment for simulator-based vehicle development and driver evaluation.

Technical Session: ReliaSoft Cloud.

HORIBA MIRA Facilities: Kinematics & Compliance.

Compact Full Spectrum Simulator

Discover how vehicle dynamics, motion, sound, vibration and visual feedback can be combined to evaluate the complete driving experience.

Technical Session: Advantage Insights.

HORIBA MIRA Facilities: Crash Testing.

DiM250 Driving Simulator

Experience advanced Driver-in-the-Loop simulation supporting vehicle dynamics, ride, handling and multidisciplinary vehicle development.

Simulator-driving places will be limited and allocated through scheduled attendee rotations.

Technical Session: VI-DataDrive Cloud.

HORIBA MIRA Facilities: Additional facility to be confirmed.

Durability, Reliability & Data Sessions

The afternoon programme is also expected to include technical sessions covering:

ReliaSoft Cloud
Advantage Insights
VI-DataDrive Cloud
Aqira and simulation-data management
Connected physical and virtual engineering workflows

HORIBA MIRA Facility Experiences

Attendees may also have the opportunity to visit selected HORIBA MIRA facilities.

Potential sessions include:

Kinematics & Compliance testing
Crash-testing facilities
Additional automotive testing laboratories

The final facility programme will be communicated before the event.

Time	Session
08:30 – 09:00	Registration & Welcome Coffee
09:00 – 09:20	Welcome Speech – Smart Testing \| HBK \| Alessio Lombardi
09:20 – 09:40	Virtual Tyre Evaluation \| Nissan & HORIBA MIRA \| Leo May & Stratos Stratoudakis
09:40 – 09:55	Acoustic Digital Prototype Evolution at Bentley \| Bentley \| Simon Noble
09:55 – 10:10	Customer Contribution – NVH \| Bentley \| Paul Kennings
10:10 – 10:30	Engineering the Full Spectrum – The Evolution of VI-grade Driving Simulation \| VI-grade \| Stefano Bernini
10:30 – 10:50	Coffee Break
10:50 – 11:10	Customer Contribution – Durability & Reliability \| HORIBA MIRA \| Craig Cochrane
11:10 – 11:30	Customer Contribution – Durability & Reliability \| JLR \| Andy Brown
11:30 – 11:50	Customer Contribution – Durability & Reliability \| McLaren \| Pete Lavelle
11:50 – 12:45	Lunch Break
12:45 – 14:45	Rotating Demo Sessions & HORIBA MIRA Facility Experiences
14:45 – 15:05	Coffee Break
15:05 – 15:45	Panel Discussion \| Dave Ewbank & Panelists
15:45 – 16:00	Closing Remarks \| HBK & VI-grade \| Steve Williams & Vivian David

Afternoon Rotations

Attendees will be allocated to rotating groups for three provisional 30-minute sessions between 12:45 and 14:45.

Who Should Attend?

UK Smart Prototypes Summit is designed for professionals working in:

Vehicle dynamics, chassis and ride development
NVH simulation and testing
Driver-in-the-Loop and Hardware-in-the-Loop applications
Durability, fatigue and reliability engineering
Physical testing and vehicle validation
CAE and test-to-simulation correlation
Engineering-data management and analytics
Automotive and motorsport research and development

Technical and engineering management

Attendance

Places are limited, particularly for the simulator demonstrations and facility visits. Early registration is therefore recommended.

Venue

HORIBA MIRA Ltd.
Watling Street
Nuneaton, Warwickshire
CV10 0TU
United Kingdom

HORIBA MIRA is a secure automotive research and engineering site. Advance registration will be mandatory, and confirmed attendees will receive detailed information covering arrival, parking, site access, privacy requirements and photography rules.

Meet Our Partners

Meet the companies contributing to the UK Smart Prototypes Summit through expert presentations, live experiences and networking opportunities, and discover how collaboration across the automotive ecosystem is enabling smarter and faster vehicle development.

Host

Presenting Companies

Learn more about our solutions presented

Sports car parked front wheel with wireframes

VI-grade

VI-grade and HBK are transforming product development through Smart Testing.

The question is no longer “Should we simulate or test?” but “How do we combine them intelligently?”

nCode® Durability Analysis and Test Data Processing Software

From digital signal processing to FE-based fatigue analysis, nCode helps you uncover critical insights and manage your data efficiently.

ReliaSoft® Reliability Analysis and Management

ReliaSoft software provides a powerful range of reliability software solutions to facilitate a comprehensive set of reliability engineering modeling and analysis techniques.