Meet The IAC: Ansys, IAC Exclusive Simulation Sponsor
Ansys, a global leader in engineering simulation software, is providing all IAC registered teams with its industry-leading Ansys VREXPERIENCE Driving Simulator, powered by SCANeR™, in addition to Ansys SCADE software development suites, to allow them to virtually test and program their autonomous vehicle technologies in a closed-loop environment. Further, Ansys is awarding $150,000 in prizes to the top finishers of the IAC Simulation Race, scheduled for early 2021.
Dr. Sandeep Sovani is director of ADAS and Autonomy at Ansys. He holds a B.E. in mechanical engineering from the University of Pune, India, an M.Tech degree from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) in Chennai, and a Ph.D. from Purdue University in Indiana. Dr. Sovani has been actively involved in various areas of automotive technology and business for more than two decades.
Q. Why is Ansys supporting the IAC?
Autonomy will be a transformative technology, just like the Internet — changing economies and millions of lives. Engaging with the academic community and developing engineers of the future who are able to operate in this new world is a priority for Ansys. This year, we celebrated our 50th Anniversary and have supplied Ansys software to date to more than 3000 academic institutions around the world.
Q. Why is simulation software essential to the ability of the IAC teams to race at IMS in 2021?
The automated software that the students create will mean “hands-off” for the racecar operator once the race starts. It is the software that will be in control and must make all decisions. This is incredibly complex software which can include millions of lines of code, and every line of code can be a potential advantage or source of potential disaster. So there is an immense amount of testing needed to ensure that the software is coded to adapt to all types of driving conditions, including aggressive driving, vehicle stability and equipment failures. It is just not possible to do all this testing on the racetrack. Without simulation, it is impossible to develop autonomous vehicles — the challenge is too complicated. That is why ESN designed the IAC to have a big simulation factor.
Q. Did you modify the Ansys simulation package to reflect the unique characteristics of the IAC?
The core simulator is not modified but there are custom models, including customization of the Dallara racecar and IMS. We also run our simulator on the Microsoft Azure cloud. The simulator requires high performance graphics cards. We wanted all teams to have access to the same hardware for the same experience, so there wasn’t an inherent advantage to any one team. Also, the software programs need to talk to each other, so we brought on RTI for communications software to enable the students to run their automated driving software on one computer and drive the simulator on another computer.
Q. Can you describe the IAC Simulation Race you are sponsoring?
The simulation race will be a giant simulation running on a large computer with one racecar model per race team. Each of the racecars will be connected to its team’s software stack. Like in the real race, a signal will be sent to the virtual drivers (the software stack created by the students) to begin the race, or different flags will be sent out virtually by a controller program, noting the time for complete “hands-off.” The simulator will run in a time-stepping fashion, every time-step accounting for what the racecars are doing, the position and state of each vehicle, its speed, etc., and updating these actors one time-step later, based on inputs from each team’s virtual driver software.
Q. What advice would you give the IAC teams?
Two things: realize that this is an incredible opportunity and make the most of it.
The teams have best-in-class software and cloud hardware resources. They’re getting advice from the best racecar drivers in the world and their software will run on a racecar from the best manufacturer on the world’s best racetrack. Simply put, they have access to the best mentors from all disciplines with the best equipment. This is a unique, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to learn and launch their careers. We expect to see the next generation of heroes coming out of the IAC, following Sebastian Thrun and others from the DARPA Grand Challenge.