Autonomous vehicle software firm Oxbotica is employing video game developers to help create a virtual test world.
The team has worked on leading flight simulators, racing games and sports titles (and without naming any names, we can pretty much guess what those were). Furthermore, the virtual test program uses a video game engine not unlike that used by Fortnite and Call of Duty.
The animation tech is also similar to what’s being used in the development of big blockbuster movies, and the goal is to allow engineers to run virtual testing in an infinite number of scenarios, as well as varying environmental conditions, while modelling unpredictable pedestrian behavior which can’t easily be recreated in the real world.
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These simulations can be run all day, ensuring that the software is thoroughly tested before being deployed. The team will run on and off-road scenarios, and could theoretically do anything from driving around an airport to going down a mine.
“At Oxbotica, we have attracted some of the brightest talent from the video game industry because they bring a speed of development and deployment unique to that industry,” said Todd Gibbs, who moved to Oxbotica from NaturalMotion, the company responsible for launching CSR Racing on iOS and Android.
“There is a lot of commonality between developing a chart-topping game and autonomous software, the most valuable being robust coding principles and a focus on CPU efficiency. We are able to write new code, debug and test in real-time without sacrificing robustness or safety.”
