https://www.iotworldtoday.com/wp-content/themes/ioti_child/assets/images/logo/IoTWorldToday-mobile-logo.png
  • Home
  • News
    • Back
    • Roundups
  • Strategy
  • Special Reports
  • Business Resources
    • Back
    • Webinars
    • White Papers
    • Industry Perspectives
    • Featured Vendors
  • Other Content
    • Back
    • Q&As
    • Case Studies
    • Features
    • How-to
    • Opinion
    • Podcasts
    • Strategic Partners
    • Latest videos
  • More
    • Back
    • About Us
    • Contact
    • Advertise
    • Editorial Submissions
  • Events
Iot World Today
  • NEWSLETTER
  • Home
  • News
    • Back
    • Roundups
  • Strategy
  • Special Reports
  • Business Resources
    • Back
    • Webinars
    • White Papers
    • Industry Perspectives
    • Featured Vendors
  • Other Content
    • Back
    • Q&As
    • Case Studies
    • Features
    • How-to
    • Opinion
    • Podcasts
    • Strategic Partners
    • Latest videos
  • More
    • Back
    • About Us
    • Contact
    • Advertise
    • Editorial Submissions
  • Events
  • newsletter
  • IIoT
  • Cities
  • Energy
  • Homes/Buildings
  • Transportation/Logistics
  • Connected Health Care
  • Retail
  • AI
  • Metaverse
  • Development
  • Security
ioti.com

Supply Chain, Transportation & Logistics


MIT Reveals Groundbreaking Simulator for Autonomous Vehicles

The data-driven simulation engine helps vehicles learn to drive in the real world and recover from near-crash scenarios
  • Written by Graham Hope
  • 23rd June 2022

Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have created a world-first open-source photorealistic simulator for autonomous driving.

VISTA 2.0 is described as “a data-driven simulation engine where vehicles can learn to drive in the real world and recover from near-crash scenarios.” Data-driven means it is built and photorealistically rendered from real-world data.

Currently, this highly advanced simulator is the exclusive domain of some of the companies leading the way in automated driving tech, who rely on data only they have access to – such as edge cases, near misses and crashes – to enable accurate simulations.

Without access to this sort of data, training AI models for autonomous vehicles is difficult. It is clearly undesirable, for example, to deliberately crash cars into other cars just to teach a neural network how to avoid doing so.

But that’s where VISTA 2.0 can change things and break new ground, with its code open-sourced to the public.

“With this release, the research community will have access to a powerful new tool for accelerating the research and development of adaptive robust control for autonomous driving,” said MIT Professor and CSAIL Director Daniela Rus.

VISTA 2.0 builds off a previous MIT model, VISTA, but moves things on significantly. While the initial iteration of VISTA supported only single-car lane-following with one camera sensor, VISTA 2.0 can simulate complex sensor types and interactive scenarios and intersections at scale. 

Among the driving tasks VISTA 2.0 can recreate and scale in complexity are lane following, lane turning, car following, static and dynamic overtaking, as well as road scenarios where multiple agents are involved.

“This is a massive jump in capabilities of data-driven simulation for autonomous vehicles,” said Alexander Amini, computer science and artificial intelligence laboratory Ph.D. student and co-lead author on two new papers, together with fellow Ph.D. student Tsun-Hsuan Wang. 

“VISTA 2.0 demonstrates the ability to simulate sensor data far beyond 2D RGB cameras, but also extremely high dimensional 3D LiDARS with millions of points, irregularly timed event-based cameras, and even interactive and dynamic scenarios with other vehicles as well,” Amini said. 

Lidar sensor data has traditionally been hard to interpret in a data-driven world as it effectively requires trying to generate brand-new 3D point clouds with millions of points from sparse views of the world. 

To synthesize 3D Lidar point clouds, the MIT researchers used data collected from a car, projected it into a 3D space, and then let a new “virtual” vehicle drive around locally from where the original vehicle was. Finally, they projected all of that sensory information back into the frame of view of the new virtual vehicle, with the help of neural networks.

Combined with the simulation of event-based cameras, VISTA 2.0 was capable of simulating the multimodal information in real time — making it possible to train neural nets offline but also test online on the car in augmented reality set-ups.

“The central algorithm of this research is how we can take a dataset and build a completely synthetic world for learning and autonomy,” said Amini. “It’s a platform that I believe one day could extend in many different axes across robotics. 

“We’re excited to release VISTA 2.0 to help enable the community to collect their own datasets and convert them into virtual worlds where they can directly simulate their own virtual autonomous vehicles, drive around these virtual terrains, train autonomous vehicles in these worlds, and then can directly transfer them to full-sized, real self-driving cars,” he said.

Tags: Connected cars autonomous vehicles self-driving cars MIT Massachusetts Institute of Technology data-driven simulation Supply Chain, Transportation & Logistics News

Related Content


  • Image shows an Icarus drone swarm.
    Militarized Drone Swarms Coming
    Militaries increasingly see value in multiple drones working as one
  • Self-Driving Shuttles Added to Public Transportation
    It’s the first time an autonomous shuttle has been fully integrated anywhere in the world
  • Image shows GM's Cruise Robotaxi
    GM’s Cruise Starts Charging Fares for Driverless Taxis
    It’s the first time a company has been allowed to operate a commercial, driverless ride-hailing service in a major U.S. city
  • Image shows Einride's Autonomous freight trucks with no driver’s cabin
    Cabin-Less Self-Driving Trucks Get the Green Light
    NHTSA gives Einride approval to operate its Autonomous Electric Transport trucks

Leave a comment Cancel reply

-or-

Log in with your IoT World Today account

Alternatively, post a comment by completing the form below:

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Latest News

  • Image shows Unilever's Alberto Prado at AI Summit 2022 in London
    AI Summit 2022: Unilever's Alberto Prado
  • Image shows a fleet of Cruise robotaxis blocking a San Francisco intersection
    Fleet of Driverless Cruise Robotaxis Block Street for Hours
  • Tesla Recalls 59,000 Vehicles Over Software Glitch
  • SoftBank, May Mobility Team on Autonomous Driving

Roundups

View all

IoT Product Roundup: Canonical, InfluxData, Wiliot and More

23rd June 2022

IoT Product Roundup: Cisco, Telit, Draganfly and More

9th June 2022

IoT Deals, Partnerships Roundup: Google, Arm, Senet and More

26th May 2022

White Papers

View all

The Role of Manufacturing Technology in Continuous Improvement Ebook

6th April 2022

IIoT Platform Trends for Manufacturing in 2022

6th April 2022

Latest Videos

View all
Image shows Unilever's Alberto Prado at AI Summit 2022 in London

AI Summit 2022: Unilever’s Alberto Prado

Prado talks about how Unilever is using AI to accelerate the speed of new discoveries and gives them access to more breakthrough innovation

Image Shows John Lewis' Barry Panai at AI Summit London 2022

AI Summit 2022: John Lewis’ Barry Panayi on AI in Retail

Panayi talks about data and AI in retail and how individuals and the technology can work together

E-books

View all

How Remote Access Helps Enterprises Improve IT Service and Employee Satisfaction

12th January 2022

An Integrated Approach to IoT Security

6th November 2020

Webinars

View all

Rethinking the Database in the IoT Era

18th May 2022

Jumpstarting Industrial IoT solutions with an edge data management platform

12th May 2022

AI led Digital Transformation of Manufacturing: Time is NOW

9th December 2021

Special Reports

View all

Omdia’s Smart Home Market Dynamics Report

7th January 2022

Cybersecurity Protection Increasingly Depends on Machine Learning

28th October 2020

IoT Security Best Practices for Industry and Enterprise

20th October 2020

Twitter

IoTWorldToday, IoTWorldSeries

🤔 Looking for 3 Strategies to Avoid IoT Key Theft? We’ve got you covered! As tech companies continue to develop an… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…

5th July 2022
IoTWorldToday, IoTWorldSeries

AI Summit 2022: Unilever’s Alberto Prado dlvr.it/STMpRN https://t.co/1dyLREr8N6

5th July 2022
IoTWorldToday, IoTWorldSeries

Seoul Robotics Expands 3D Perception Platform across South America dlvr.it/STMhSV https://t.co/a10l3Eb2Kn

5th July 2022
IoTWorldToday, IoTWorldSeries

Microsoft Extends Secured-Core Program to IoT Devices dlvr.it/STMg4k https://t.co/laBPF5VjC4

5th July 2022
IoTWorldToday, IoTWorldSeries

Spot the Robot Dog Helps Police Ahead of Boston’s Fourth of July Celebration dlvr.it/STKWjb https://t.co/LdRg7a2xqU

4th July 2022
IoTWorldToday, IoTWorldSeries

Another 59,000 @Teslas being recalled over a software glitch affecting the vehicle’s Emergency Call safety system… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…

4th July 2022
IoTWorldToday, IoTWorldSeries

Join us in the premier #tech destination of #Austin this November 2-3 for our next #IoT event. Connect and collabo… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…

4th July 2022
IoTWorldToday, IoTWorldSeries

SoftBank, May Mobility Team on Autonomous Driving dlvr.it/STJrW0 https://t.co/mOYoBsgs14

4th July 2022

Newsletter

Sign up for IoT World Today newsletters: vertical industry coverage on Tuesdays and horizontal tech coverage on Thursdays.

Special Reports

Our Special Reports take an in-depth look at key topics within the IoT space. Download our latest reports.

Business Resources

Find the latest white papers and other resources from selected vendors.

Media Kit and Advertising

Want to reach our audience? Access our media kit.

DISCOVER MORE FROM INFORMA TECH

  • IoT World Series
  • Channel Futures
  • RISC-V
  • Dark Reading
  • ITPro Today
  • Web Hosting Talk

WORKING WITH US

  • Contact
  • About Us
  • Advertise
  • Login/Register

FOLLOW IoT World Today ON SOCIAL

  • Privacy
  • CCPA: “Do Not Sell My Data”
  • Cookies Policy
  • Terms
Copyright © 2022 Informa PLC. Informa PLC is registered in England and Wales with company number 8860726 whose registered and Head office is 5 Howick Place, London, SW1P 1WG.
This website uses cookies, including third party ones, to allow for analysis of how people use our website in order to improve your experience and our services. By continuing to use our website, you agree to the use of such cookies. Click here for more information on our Cookie Policy and Privacy Policy.
X