Using simulation to drive Toyota’s automated driving system development process

Woven Planet Group is composed of two operating companies, Woven Core and Woven Alpha along with an investment fund, Woven Capital under a holding company, Woven Planet Holdings. In January 2021, the group was formed to expand and improve operations of Toyota Research Institute - Advanced Development (TRI-AD) for the purpose of developing innovative products that will enable its vision, “Mobility to Love, Safety to Live.” It also oversees Woven City that will serve as an incubator for smart city design, connected mobility, and robotics technology from Toyota and its partners.
Tokyo
Office
2018
Founded
1,100
Employees
(in 2022)
“Applied Intuition works hand in hand with our engineering teams to integrate their tools with our quite complex codebase.

The depth of their knowledge coupled with their agility and the rich feature set of their products help move our project quickly and successfully. Applied’s responsiveness to our needs have helped us to accelerate.”
Nikos Michalakis
VP of Software Platform
Goals
Woven Planet Group is at the forefront of automated driving vehicle development, incorporating the latest trends and technology into its development process. It focuses on developing algorithms that aim to deliver the world’s most secure, comfortable, and above all, the safest mobility experience.

To accelerate the deployment of automated driving experience in Toyota’s models, the team is focusing on the following key areas.
Automated driving control algorithm development
Develop algorithms capable of safely navigating through traffic-heavy highways.
Safety and functional safety testing
Ensure compliance with ISO 26262 etc., and that system/component failures are properly addressed.
Expanding coverage to test edge cases
Verify a perception module in various synthetic 3D environments that are difficult to reproduce on expressways and other motor-vehicle-only roadways.
A scalable approach
Test tens of thousands of scenarios concurrently to speed up the development cycle.
“End-to-end validation of a vast array of real-world scenarios is critical to ensure the safety of our customers.

Our automated driving software is increasingly more complex and we need powerful and scalable simulation environments to efficiently and comprehensively verify the system.

Applied Intuition has provided us with an easy-to-use tool and we will continue to rely on them to speed up our development cycle.”
Kenichiro Aoki
Staff Engineer, Teammate Features Development Team
Approach
Woven Planet Group has partnered with Applied to test its self-driving system end-to-end under a vast number of scenarios quickly, safely, and comprehensively.
Synthetically created expressway for perception system testing
Automotive-grade simulation engine: Applied’s software is used in Woven Planet Group’s extensive testing process and informs Woven Planet Group’s development decisions.
End-to-end system testing: Applied’s simulation tools enable end-to-end verification of complex systems including the perception module. Continuous integration (CI) environments of such systems are also created.
Seamless integration: Integration was customized to meet Woven Planet Group’s requirements (e.g., support for vehicle dynamics model integration).
Large-scale simulations in the cloud: An environment to test large-scale scenarios in the cloud in a parallel state was established.
Evaluation under a wide range of edge cases: Synthetic data enables the scalable generation and verification of situations by changing parameters such as weather, fog, time of day, and visibility.
Testing the perception module using synthetic data: Sensors such as Toyota’s proprietary cameras are modeled accurately; virtual 3D environments specific to Woven Planet Group’s operational design domains (ODDs) are generated procedurally to test Woven Planet Group’s perception stack without driving on roads.
“Applied Intuition’s tools combine the ease of scenario creation and scalability. They also have the flexibility to add features such as those for sensor model implementation.

We feel supported by the Applied team’s proactiveness in addressing our technically challenging requests.”
Tadashi Okubo
Senior Engineer, Teammate Features Development Team
Impact
Shorter development cycle
Woven Planet Group has gained abilities to build software in a virtual environment and test their system end-to-end, leading to a shorter development cycle.
High-quality software
Woven Planet Group can now develop high-quality software without re-work as a result of focusing on the CI environment and creating an environment that tests software regressions constantly.
Scalable comprehensive testing
Comprehensive tests are completed more quickly because simulations have scaled Woven Planet’s autonomous vehicle verification process.