Can artificial intelligence surpass the best automotive engineers?
This page is translated from the original post "l’intelligence artificielle peut-elle surpasser les meilleurs ingénieurs automobiles ?" in French.
- 19/03/2025 12:28
Volvo is exploring a new frontier of automotive safety using artificial intelligence. Chips to assist brains?
Beyond artificial intelligence, Volvo aims to create virtual worlds to design even safer vehicles. But can we imagine that AI might know better than human experts how to prevent accidents?
Thanks to ultra-realistic virtual environments, Volvo can analyze and reproduce data collected by its cars’ sensors, whether it’s emergency braking, steering assistance, or manual driver reactions. Using an advanced technique called Gaussian projection, these scenarios can be broken down into a multitude of 3D variants. For example, by adding pedestrians or obstacles, Volvo tests thousands of complex situations at unprecedented scales and speeds.
Alwin Bakkenes, global head of software engineering at Volvo Cars, summarizes the interest of this technology: “We can turn a rare case into thousands of variants to train our software to handle extreme situations before they occur in the real world.”
The analysis of super dangers
However, AI does not act alone. Volvo combines these simulations with real-world testing, developing software capable of managing unforeseen situations. These virtual environments offer a scalable, safe, and cost-effective solution for training and validating driver assistance systems. Volvo also benefits from a partnership with NVIDIA, which provides an AI supercomputing platform to contextualize and leverage data captured by its next-generation electric vehicles. This system paves the way for even more effective safety models while accelerating their development.
Historically, Volvo has always used data to innovate, from accident analyses in the 1970s to modern systems like lateral collision protection. Today, the question remains open: can AI reach a level of precision that even the best engineers could not imagine? And if so, will we be ready to trust it to safeguard our safety?
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