Talk Abstract: Since the inception of the AV industry, companies have leveraged simulation and virtual testing to accelerate the development of autonomous vehicles. With Aurora’s goal of deploying driverless trucks in 2024, high fidelity simulation has become critical in validating that autonomous technology is safe for the real world. We will discuss how Aurora has invested in cutting-edge technology to develop high-fidelity simulations that can test autonomous trucks in safety-critical contexts such as collisions and long-range sensing, and will also discuss how these simulations are essential in producing key validation evidence to advance toward a complete Safety Case and driverless deployment. 

Speaker Biography: As the Director of Synthetic Worlds & Sensor Simulation, Magnus focuses on synthetic data and test generation at Aurora, the self-driving company. Magnus joined Aurora when the company acquired his start-up 7D Labs, which explored the use of high-fidelity computer graphics for machine learning and autonomous vehicle simulation. Before that, Magnus spent over 15 years in the visual effects and animation industry, serving at Pixar Animation Studios as a Principal Engineer in rendering and simulation, and at Sony Imageworks in software engineering and effects supervision. Magnus has served as a member of the AMPAS (Academy of Motion Pictures Arts & Sciences) Digital Imaging Technology subcommittee, and in 2015, he was awarded an Academy Technical Achievement Award for his creation of the open-source voxel library Field3D.