Volvo Autonomous Solutions has signed an agreement with verification specialist Foretellix, which the companies say will jointly address the challenges of large-scale verification of autonomous driving solutions on highways and in confined areas, such as mines.
The agreement will see the creation of a coverage-driven verification solution for autonomous driving operating on both public roads and in confined areas. This should enable massive scale testing of millions of different scenarios, which will validate autonomous vehicles and machines dealing with anything they might encounter within their specified Operational Design Domain (ODD).
Volvo hopes that the ability of the solution to orchestrate large scale simulation and conduct the big data analysis required will lead to a substantial reduction in costs and time to market, ensuring faster operational readiness and the ability to safely scale up the system across multiple sites and ODDs.
Foretellix has developed a novel verification platform that uses intelligent automation and big data analytics tools that coordinate and monitor millions of driving scenarios, to expose bugs and edge cases, including the most extreme cases. Volvo will jointly adapt Foretellix’s verification system for both highways and confined area applications, such as mines and quarries. The two companies will use the Open Measurable Scenario Description Language (M-SDL) created by Foretellix, which simplifies the capture, reuse and sharing of scenarios, and can specify any mix of scenarios and operating conditions, to identify previously unknown hazards.
“Volvo Autonomous Solutions believes in a collaborative verification concept, one that uses open standards,” commented Magnus Liljeqvist, global technology manager at Volvo Autonomous Solutions. “The partnership with Foretellix gives us access to the state-of-the-art verification tools and accelerating our time to market.”