Autonomous Intelligent Driving (AID), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Audi AG and the ‘center of excellence’ for urban autonomous driving within the Volkswagen Group, has selected Israeli company Cognata as its autonomous vehicle simulation partner.
AID chose Cognata’s system, which leverages artificial intelligence (AI), deep learning and computer vision in a highly realistic simulation environment, in order to safely and quickly simulate and validate autonomous vehicles (AVs) prior to physical roadway tests.
Cognata has developed a realistic automotive simulation platform where virtual cars travel along virtual roads in virtual cities, which are all remarkably true to real-world driving conditions. The company recreates real cities from around the world, allowing an expanded range of testing scenarios, including AI-based traffic models simulating real-world traffic conditions.
The simulation engine reproduces sensor input by emulating the specific sensors’ interactions with real-world materials. Cognata’s simulated testing and evaluation environment shaves years off the validation time by generating fast, highly accurate results, and eliminates the safety concerns, high costs, and limited scalability of road-testing in the physical world.
Through the new multi-year partnership with Cognata, AID has chosen to implement a large-scale, cloud-based simulation solution and facilitate thorough, efficient and rapid testing, thereby increasing safety while speeding up time to market for AID-enabled autonomous vehicles.
Cognata will provide AID with its end-to-end simulation offering and support the autonomous vehicle’s entire product lifecycle. AID is building a test fleet of vehicles that are running the latest version of its proprietary self-driving software every day.
AID is developing the full software stack from AI and machine learning for perception and prediction to localization, trajectory planning and interface, to sensors and computers. Initially focused on urban environment and mobility services, the AID software will eventually be a standard platform for all models and brands across the Volkswagen Group, including VW, Audi and Porsche vehicles.
“We are extremely honored to have been selected by AID, a leading player in the autonomous vehicles space. Thorough simulation is a critical and integral part of safely preparing autonomous vehicles for the road, and we look forward to a long-term collaboration with AID,” commented Cognata’s CEO, Danny Atsmonsays.
“The combination of the groundbreaking work done by AID and the end-to-end simulation offering from us will safely accelerate commercial deployment of AID-enabled autonomous vehicles.”
AID’s CTO, Alex Haag, said, “We are convinced that simulation is a key tool to increase our development speed, and a necessary one for the validation of our product and for proving it is safe. After exploring various solutions, we decided that partnering with Cognata is the fastest way to reach these goals.”
