Case Study: How Luminar Accelerates ADAS and AD Testing With First Validated Sensor Models of Its LiDAR

Luminar Technologies and Applied Intuition are partnering to provide the first validated sensor models of Luminar LiDARs for advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS) and automated driving (AD) simulation. This partnership aims to offer automakers access to high-fidelity LiDAR data for inclusion in their simulations. Automakers will be able to use Applied Intuition's sensor simulator Sensor Sim to validate their lidar-based ADAS or AD software in virtual environments while reducing the need for expensive real-world tests.

Sensor Sim enables OEMs to create and simulate edge case scenarios with perception and planning systems in the loop. Integrated Luminar LiDAR models and real-time point cloud generation accurately capture LiDAR behaviors that match the sensor hardware in development vehicles.

Luminar uses Applied Intuition's simulation platform to develop their ADAS stack, Sentinel. Sentinel provides a fully redundant, AI and geometric-based safety solution that can dramatically reduce vehicle accidents and injuries. With the integration of Sentinel and Object Sim, Luminar can now run the full Sentinel pipeline within the virtual environment, controlling simulated vehicles in the same manner as real world vehicles, including acceleration, steering and braking. Through closed-loop simulation, Luminar can easily develop against and validate the edge cases of real-world driving scenarios that are challenging for today's perception systems and active safety functions.

Iterative Development

For Luminar's software team, development and testing have always gone hand in hand, employing industry-best methods to ensure no line of code goes untested. For higher-level software integration tests, Luminar has consistently tested all levels of algorithms in their own fleet of development vehicles. However, conducting full-stack testing in simulation scales better than in vehicles which must be retrofitted with drive-by-wire systems, compute capability, and sensors. With Sensor Sim's high level of accuracy, Luminar is now able to simulate its LiDAR sensor's output and run the full Sentinel stack in a simulated environment. This results in a level of point cloud, perception, and actuation fidelity that rivals running the software stack in an actual development vehicle.

Conducting full-stack testing in Object Sim and Sensor Sim allows many more Luminar developers to concurrently test portions of their software on a full system level as they do not require a test vehicle. Simulation tests also provide 100% repeatability, allowing edge cases to be isolated, tested, and retested with incorporated lessons learned. With these simulation capabilities, developers and Luminar's CI can run large scale experiments asynchronously across many scenario variations.

Improved Time to Market

Production grade automotive hardware and software require extensive testing campaigns to validate performance on hundreds of thousands of hours of operation. This statistically significant test coverage is traditionally extremely time consuming and expensive. The collaboration between Applied Intuition and Luminar significantly accelerates development time by moving large parts of the required data collection from the physical vehicle fleet to a virtual one which can be parallelized to run many scenarios concurrently. Testing to this required statistical depth can be extremely time-consuming and expensive. The collaboration between Applied Intuition and Luminar significantly accelerates development time by moving large parts of the required data collection from the physical vehicle fleet to a virtual one that only requires compute time and can run many scenarios in parallel 24/7.

De-Risked Vehicle Development Timelines

Faster development time helps enable quicker iterations, such as adding additional functionality and performance improvements.

How the Luminar LiDAR Navigates a Challenging Simulation Scenario

Today's Automatic Emergency Braking (AEB) systems are frequently developed to handle clearly visible pedestrians and vehicles, but can fail when put to the test with more challenging scenarios around visibility and timing. Below is an example simulated scenario of a late reveal small child in a low visibility environment where the vehicle must instantly identify the collision threat and apply the brakes. In this example, the Sentinel software package correctly identifies and tracks the pedestrian, evaluates the collision probability, calculates a trajectory to avoid it, and then applies the brakes in the simulated ego vehicle in the Applied platform.

The end to end simulation of challenging scenarios like this one, which test the limits of detection capabilities of the sensor and software are necessary to bring these systems to the real world faster, and at higher quality, ultimately realizing safety benefits for all.

About Applied Intuition

Applied Intuition is a Tier 1 vehicle software supplier that accelerates the adoption of safe and intelligent machines worldwide. Founded in 2017, Applied Intuition delivers the definitive ADAS/AD toolchain and a world-class vehicle platform to help customers shorten time to market, build industry-leading products, and create next-generation consumer experiences. 18 of the top 20 global automakers trust Applied Intuition's solutions to drive the production of modern vehicles. Applied Intuition serves the automotive, trucking, construction, mining, agriculture, and defense industries and is headquartered in Mountain View, CA, with offices in Ann Arbor and Detroit, MI, Washington, D.C., Munich, Stockholm, Seoul, and Tokyo. Learn more at https://appliedintuition.com.

About Luminar

Luminar is a global automotive technology company ushering in a new era of vehicle safety and autonomy. For the past decade, Luminar has built an advanced hardware and software/AI platform to enable its more than 50 industry partners, including the majority of global automotive OEMs. From consumer vehicle programs with Volvo Cars and Mercedes-Benz to technology partnerships, Luminar is poised to be the first automotive technology company to enable next-generation safety and autonomous capabilities for global production vehicles.