Volvo Cars harnesses AI-generated virtual worlds to enhance safety
Volvo Cars is leveraging AI-generated virtual worlds to accelerate the development of its safety software, including advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS) in order to create safer vehicles.
The company is employing a computational technique called Gaussian splatting (yes really) to synthesize and manipulate real-world incident data collected by its cars’ sensors.
This technology allows Volvo to create realistic, high-fidelity 3D scenes, which can be altered to test various traffic scenarios and potential outcomes. By adding or removing road users and modifying traffic behavior, Volvo can expose its safety software to a wide range of situations, including complex and rare “edge cases.”
“We already have millions of data points of moments that never happened that we use to develop our software,” said Alwin Bakkenes, Head of Global Software Engineering at Volvo Cars. “Thanks to Gaussian splatting, we can select one of the rare edge cases and explode it into thousands of new variations of the scenario to train and validate our models against.”
This approach significantly reduces the time required to test software against edge cases, from months to days. Volvo uses virtual environments alongside real-world testing, as they are safe, scalable, and cost-efficient. The virtual environments are developed in collaboration with Zenseact, an AI and software company founded by Volvo Cars.
The project is part of a PhD program with Swedish universities, exploring the integration of neural rendering techniques into future safety initiatives. Volvo’s exploration of Gaussian splatting is made possible by its expanded relationship with NVIDIA. The company’s new generation of electric cars, built on NVIDIA accelerated compute, collects sensor data that is contextualized by an AI supercomputing platform powered by NVIDIA DGX systems.
This supercomputing platform, part of a recent investment in a Nordic data center, enables Volvo to unlock new insights and accelerate the development of AI-powered safety models. Volvo’s exploration of these technologies was presented at the NVIDIA GTC conference. The presentation is accessible via this link.
