TIER IV to Unveil Open-Source Digital Twin-Oriented Autonomous Driving Simulator

TOKYO, Nov. 29, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- TIER IV, an open source autonomous driving startup, today announced the open-source release of a digital twin-oriented autonomous driving simulator (Scene Simulator for Autoware - AWSIM) designed to efficiently develop safe autonomous driving systems. To realize the evaluation and verification of the autonomous driving software, real-world driving and traffic environment simulation has been achieved by building a virtual world based on 3D model maps and pairing them with sensor data models in combination with realistic physical models. Moreover, over the coming months, the automatic generation of synthetic training data for machine learning will significantly reduce the cost of training and validation of object detection and environmental recognition.

TIER IV's Web.Auto is a cloud-native and edge-intensive DevOps platform for autonomous driving simulation, CI/CD data pipeline, data management, operations management, and remote monitoring. Until today, the focus of autonomous driving software validation has been on scenario-based driving and traffic environment simulation, and real-world event reproduction tests with driving logs. Today, TIER IV made the newly announced end-to-end simulation available, adding to the existing modes of testing. This will enable efficient validation according to each target objective and achieve even safer autonomous driving.

Web.Auto is powered by Amazon Web Services (AWS), the world's most comprehensive and widely adopted cloud platform. In addition, the autonomous driving simulator uses the technology from Unity, the world's leading provider of real-time 3D platforms.

"We are very pleased to enter into a partnership with TIER IV to jointly develop a 3D simulator for the realization of autonomous driving," said Tetsuya Hotta, President, Unity Technologies Japan K.K. "In recent years, simulation in a digital twin environment is indispensable for the development of autonomous driving. Through this partnership, we hope to contribute to the realization of more advanced autonomous driving together with TIER IV."

"We welcome the release of AWSIM as another major contribution to Autoware," said Yang Zhang, Director of the Autoware Foundation Board. "We are excited to adopt it as our default end-to-end digital twin simulation solution for the foundation. On behalf of the foundation members, we appreciate the unwavering commitment TIER IV has yet again demonstrated."

"The mission of TIER IV is to co-create value, disruptively, through intelligent vehicles," said Shinpei Kato, Founder and CTO of TIER IV. "To achieve this goal in the right way, we share the vision 'The Art of Open Source - Reimagine Intelligent Vehicles', establishing a sound ecosystem that enables as many organizations and individuals as possible to be part of our mission. This ensures  the technology is not dominated by particular players but open to everyone. The digital twin-oriented autonomous driving simulator which we just announced today is one of such products that will realize our vision through open source and fulfill our responsibility in the market."

"We welcome customers in automotive industry to advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS) initiatives by leveraging the cloud," said Yasuhiro Kose, head of solutions architecture, AWS Japan. "AWS is providing the cloud technology required for TIER IV to help these customers through Web.Auto. The digital twin-oriented autonomous driving simulator, available as open-source software, allows customers developing autonomous vehicles to simulate and validate in a more realistic environment. We are pleased that the simulator is available through Web.Auto to facilitate the development of ADAS and autonomous driving technology."

About TIER IV

TIER IV, a deep-tech startup based in Japan, has led the development of Autoware, the world's first open-source software for autonomous driving, and provides full-stack solutions for the commercialization of intelligent vehicles based on the Autoware-defined autonomous driving kit (ADK) running on multiple platforms. Applications range from last-mile delivery, cargo transport, robotaxi, futuristic mobility-as-a-service vehicles, and fleet management systems.

As a founding member of the Autoware Foundation, TIER IV is dedicated to sharing technology with ecosystem partners for safe intelligent vehicles that will benefit all of society. Our aim is to empower individuals and organizations to overcome barriers of time and space to collectively make autonomous vehicles a reality. Learn more at https://tier4.jp/en/ and follow us @tier_iv_japan.

SOURCE Tier IV, Inc.