Proving ground

A proving ground (US), training area (Australia, Ireland, UK) or training centre (Canada) is an installation or reservation where vehicles, weapons or other civilian or military technology are experimented with or are tested, or where military tactics are tested. Proving ground is an area where the performance of such vehicles and objects is being tested.

For other uses, see Proving ground (disambiguation).

Proving grounds often encompass large and remote areas.

Types of Proving Grounds

There are several different types of proving grounds, depending on the type of vehicle or objects being tested. We can classify them as:

  • Aeronautical Applications
  • Military Applications
  • Vehicle Testing
  • Marine Performance Testing
  • Aerospace Applications (For test-firing missiles and drones)

Vehicle Testing and Development[1]

Proving grounds are used by R&D engineering teams in vehicle development process for validation or verification, inspection, and certification or homologation of the vehicles. They are an efficient means of qualifying the durability and the performance of vehicles and their components.

Proving ground facilities are used to expose industry prototypes to the conditions that the final product will experience either in extremes or during its whole life-time. This is achieved by accelerating damage accumulation rates, so failures are detectable in a short period of time.

Typical applications for vehicle proving grounds are:

  • Durability testing
  • Corrosion testing
  • Functional performance
  • Brake testing
  • Ride and handling (Vehicle Dynamics)
  • NVH - Noise, Vibration, and Harness
  • Powertrain testing

Military and Government

Asia

Republic of Korea

Australasia

Australia

Europe

Austria

Czech Republic
Military Area Boletice, Czech Republic

There are five proving grounds in the Czech Republic with the total area of 1296 km2.

Denmark
  • Borris Skydeterræn (47 km2)

Finland
  • Rovajärvi proving ground near Rovaniemi in Lapland is the largest proving ground in Northern Europe.
  • The Artillery Brigade in Niinisalo, currently houses the Finnish ordnance R&D center (established 1921).

Germany

Ireland

Italy

Poland
  • Drawsko Pomorskie (340 km2) belongs to the Polish Army and Air Force (since 1946), and has also been used by NATO since 1996. This facility is internationally known as DPTA - Drawsko Pomorskie Training Area. It is also an important site of archeological excavations.
  • Ośrodek Szkolenia Poligonowego Wojsk Lądowych Żagań (about 34,000 ha) in Żagań County and Bolesławiec County; belongs to Polish Land Forces also used by NATO

Portugal
  • Alcochete (75 km2) - artillery and air bombing range. Established in 1904, it was managed by the Portuguese Army until 1993 and since then is managed by the Portuguese Air Force. It is the largest closed military facility in Europe. In 2008, it was chosen to be the site of the future New Lisbon International Airport.

Spain

United Kingdom

Russia/former Soviet Union

In Russia a designated area is usually called a "polygon" (Полигон).

  • Kapustin Yar - aerial weapons/rocket test range, North Caucasus Military District
  • Totskoye range nuclear tests - test range in the Urals where nuclear tests were carried out in 1954
  • YakutiaChallenge - winter test proving ground in Yakutia, Eastern Siberia

North America

Canada

United States

In the United States, there are several military facilities that have been designated as Proving Grounds.

Automotive proving grounds

Automotive proving ground[5] or also called automotive test track serves automotive industry for road vehicle testing. In automotive development process, vehicle manufacturers typically test the behaviour of the vehicle in various environments and traffic situations. Conventional vehicle test cases are usually focus on the dynamic properties of vehicles. Test tracks generally compass the engineering tasks of vehicle testing, validation and proving. By the advent of autonomous cars, new proving grounds specially dedicated for self-driving cars appear as well as traditional test fields are transformed for highly automated or autonomous vehicle tests.

Automakers

Independent automotive proving grounds[6]
  • Digitrans Automotive Proving Ground, St. Valentin, Austria
  • ZalaZone Automotive Proving Ground, Hungary
  • fr:UTAC CERAM, France
  • Applus IDIADA, Spain
  • de:Automotive Testing Papenburg, Germany
  • HORIBA MIRA, United Kingdom
  • Bruntingthorpe Airfield & Proving Ground, United Kingdom
  • Millbrook Proving Ground, United Kingdom
  • TRIWO Automotive Testing Center, vehicle testing proving grounds close to Frankfurt and Saarbruecken, Germany[7]

Footnotes
  1. "List Of Automotive Proving Grounds [Updated 2020] | Dewesoft". dewesoft.com. Retrieved 2020-07-31.
  2. Lewis, Jeffrey (June 28, 2017). "Anheung Proving Ground". Arms Control Wonk. Archived from the original on June 28, 2017.
  3. Lewis, Jeffrey (June 24, 2017). "South Korean President Moon watched a missile test. We don't pay enough attention to South Korea's missiles. 1/". Twitter. Retrieved June 28, 2017.
  4. Poligono Sperimentale e di Addestramento Interforze del Salto di Quirra
  5. Szalay, Zs.; Nyerges, Á.; Hamar, H.; Hesz, M. (2017). "Technical Specification Methodology for an Automotive Proving Ground Dedicated to Connected and Automated Vehicles". Periodica Polytechnica Transportation Engineering. 45 (3): 168–174. doi:10.3311/PPtr.10708.
  6. Szalay, Zs.; Nyerges, Á.; Hamar, H.; Hesz, M. (2017). "Technical Specification Methodology for an Automotive Proving Ground Dedicated to Connected and Automated Vehicles". Periodica Polytechnica Transportation Engineering. 45 (3): 168–174. doi:10.3311/PPtr.10708.
  7. KFZ-Testcenter, Triwo. "Teststrecken-Kalender | Triwo KFZ-Testcenter". www.triwo-testcenter.de (in German). Retrieved 17 January 2018.

Further reading
  • Edwin A. Martini (ed.), Proving Grounds: Militarized Landscapes, Weapons Testing, and the Environmental Impact of US Bases. Seattle, WA: University of Washington Press, 2015.
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