Computer Vision News - July 2019

Edward Schwalb is a Lead Scientist at MSC Software, who are part of the CVPR 2019 Expo. MSC Software has a product called a Virtual Test Drive which is a simulation product that provides simulation of virtual worlds that match real worlds. In order to test the software of advanced driving assistance and self- driving cars, they need a lot of virtual miles driven because it is not practical to test these vehicles in the physical world. Edwards tells us that they provide hardware-in-the-loop, software-in-the- loop, model-in-the-loop, vehicle-in- the-loop, and driver-in-the-loop simulation with different levels of realism. They can record a realistic scenario and generate variations of that scenario. One of the challenges in the industry is that people drive about 100 million miles between fatal crashes. That means having to test for billions of miles, and you cannot do that without simulation. This product allows you to mimic real life to make it as realistic as possible, including simulating traffic. There are sensor models and driver models. It can also make a distribution of scenarios so that rare events happen more frequently. Edward says his research interest is to do with quantifying probabilistic models for the density of different crashes and adverse events. He’s specifically interested in people who want to look at the validation of the car more so than the algorithms for driving the car, because he would like a safe vehicle quantitatively analysing the safety of the vehicle on the road. He would like to use a simulation to extend the physical testing to achieve that statistical simulating of billions of miles. 24 DAILY CVPR Wednesday Expo: MSC Software