Volvo using advanced AI simulations and Gaussian Splatting to accelerate the development of driver safety systems

According to the car-maker, the team is taking real world incident data gathered by sensors on vehicles - such as emergency braking, sharp steering or manual intervention - and using an advanced computational technique known as Gaussian Splatting to rapidly create and probe a range of virtual scenarios.  

Volvo said that the technique, which can create a vast amount of realistic, high-fidelity 3D scenes and subjects from real-world visuals, enables the virtual environment to be manipulated by adding or removing road users and changing the behaviour of traffic or obstacles on the road and allows engineers to expose the safety software to all types of traffic situations, at a speed and scale not possible before.

The work has been partly helped by Volvo’s long-standing collaborative partnership with computing leader NVIDIA, which is helping the car maker explore and accelerate the application of AI technologies.