How to simulate relevant traffic scenarios based on statistics? We are very proud to present Joakim Olsson, Product Owner, Complete Feature Verification at Zenuity as a speaker in Track C Testing & Validation on the 6th of May. Joakim is currently working as a product owner for complete feature verification of cruising and HAD features at Zenuity and has a background within development of precautionary algorithms for AD software. On VECS he will talk about how they are creating traffic scenarios that are relevant for the intended operational design domain and how they can estimate the probability of the failure domain based on extracted traffic scenarios. We asked him a few questions about his presentation and what the audience can take out of it.
Joakim, please introduce yourself for the VECS audience.
My entire work life I have spent within the area of active safety where my focus always has been within the domain of safety and verification. My career started at Volvo Cars where I worked with computer aided engineering as well as in-vehicle testing of new features for the active safety product portfolio of Volvo Cars. I moved onto the domain of AD when starting at Zenuity where I worked with development of precautionary safety algorithms to be used to obtain a safe behavior of the AD feature. Right now, I work as a product owner for complete feature verification in our Cruising and Highly Autonomous Driving product area.
Your theme at VECS is Quantifying the World Through Data – an Approach on how to Simulate Relevant Traffic Scenarios Based on Statistics. Can you share a preview of what you will be discussing in your talk? What do you hope the audience can take out of it?
I hope people will see the power of using data in order to understand and quantify the challenges that the features we deploy on the roads will be exposed to during operation.
One of the key challenges when developing an AD vehicle is to verify the safety of the feature in relevant traffic scenarios and knowing when you are done. Your session intends to present an alternative approach using simulation, combined with data collected inside the intended operational design domain. What kind of data collected inside the intended operational design domain are you using?
In order to understand the world, we need to accurately capture it. To achieve this, we are using data from highly accurate ground truth sensor systems.
Is scenario driven development the new paradigm?
Scenario Driven Development is a rather broad term that has different meaning for different persons. For this reason, I’m not sure I am comfortable to use the word paradigm. That aside, I am very convinced that as the feature portfolio within the area of active safety advances, moving into the domain of autonomy, we will need to put scenarios in focus and handle the scenario explosion problem.
Which tools are you using for the simulations you will talk about at VECS?
At Zenuity we are building up a toolchain handling everything from data to simulations and the connection between the two. In this process we have collaboration with multiple companies and partners, but we are not locking our self in to a specific simulation engine for instance.
How to validate simulation results? Which are the challenges?
A simulator is a model, and a model always need to be validated against a higher fidelity level of what you are trying to model. The validation of a simulation environment is a very important process in order to give confidence and relevance of what we are simulating. This will require high accurate ground truth systems so we can capture the world on the highest fidelity level and use it as validation against the results from the virtual domain.
According to you, which considerations are needed for advancing the development of safety testing for ADS?
The area of AD spawns a pool of new challenges which will require innovation and new ways of thinking to a new degree. We need to use both the robust and well-developed methods already developed within the industry along with new ways of solving the verification task.
We are really pleased that you will speak at VECS and that you also will take part in a panel on Simulation for Testing Autonomous Vehicles. What do you expect from VECS 2020? As always at VECS I expect good and fruitful discussions with other industry colleagues and to get inspiration on alternative ways to solve the problems we are facing.